H 
O 


LIBRARY 

OF   THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA, 


01  FT  OK 


Received          eX^^cC      -  /<*9. 

Accession  No.  (g<S~^QS^    Class  No, 


CO 

S  <2 


8  r 

a  I 


il 

O       O 

ci     t/5 

II 

II 

8,3 


•2  tS 

H  K 


THE  LENAPE  STONE 


OR 


THE  INDIAN  AND  THE  MAMMOTH 


BY 


H.    C.    MERCER 


NEW  YORK  &  LONDON 

G.    PI    PUTNAM'S    SONS 

Srjjj  gmichrrboclur  |)r£ss 
1885 


COPYRIGHT   BY 

H.  C.  MERCER 

1885 


Press  ot 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
New  York 


PREFACE. 


IN  claiming  an  impartial  examination  of  so  extraordinay 
a  carving  as  the  "  Lenape  Stone  "at  the  hands  of  archae 
ologists,  the  writer  has  had  several  difficulties  to  contend 
with. 

First,  The  fact  that  the  carving  is  quite  unique,  it  being 
the  first  aboriginal  carving  of  the  mammoth  thus  far 
claimed  to  have  been  discovered  in  North  America. 

Second,  That  no  " scientific  observer"  was  present  at 
the  discovery. 

Third,  That  since  its  discovery  the  Stone  has  been 
several  times  cleaned,  and  that  thereby  many  geological 
tests  of  its  authenticity  have  been  rendered  impossible. 

Fourth,  That  within  the  last  few  years,  and  particularly 
in  Philadelphia,  serious  frauds  have  been  perpetrated  upon 
lovers  of  Indian  relics. 

These  considerations  may  well  have  been  sufficient  to 
prejudice  the  mind  of  a  stranger  against  the  alleged 
wonderful  Indian  relic,  yet  they  should  in  no  case  suffice 
to  prevent,  on  the  part  of  the  archaeologists,  a  thorough 
and  impartial  examination  of  all  the  evidence  pertaining 
to  its  discovery. 

In  presenting  this  and  other  evidence,  the  writer  has 


IV  PREFACE. 

wished  only  to  be  impartial,  and  to  be  led  by  the  facts 
as  they  have  presented  themselves,  and  for  the  examina 
tion  of  which  his  opportunities  have  been  peculiarly 
favorable. 

In  his  knowledge  of  the  neighborhood  and  its  people 
(his  home),  an  acquaintance  with  all  the  persons  con 
cerned,  and  very  frequent  visits  to  the  Hansell  Farm, 
nothing  has  yet  occurred  to  shake  his  faith  in  the  unim 
peachable  evidence  of  an  honest  discovery.  Yet  should 
any  fresh  light  be  brought  to  bear  upon  the  subject,  how 
ever  at  variance  with  this  opinion,  it  will  be  welcomed. 

The  appearance  in  America  of  a  carving  of  the  hairy 
mammoth,  presumably  the  work  of  our  aborigines,  if  not 
a  surprise  to  students  of  archaeology,  would  certainly  be 
no  less  interesting  than  the  French  discoveries  of  some 
twenty  years  ago  ;  while  the  ready  connection  of  the  work 
with  the  Indian  of  comparatively  recent  times,  the  appear 
ance  of  human  figures  in  the  carving,  and  of  many  sym 
bols  which  seem  related  to  highly  important  branches  of 
archaeological  study,  would  awaken  a  more  general  and 
enthusiastic  interest  in  the  Stone,  than  has  been  felt  for 
any  other  prehistoric  representation  of  the  great  elephant. 

A  disbelief  in  its  authenticity  would  leave  us  with  an 
interest,  not  inconsiderable,  in  the  unknown  person  who, 
after  months  of  careful  study  and  preparation,  could  have 
conceived  and  executed  so  remarkable  a  fraud. 


THE    LENAPE    STONE. 


IN  the  spring  of  1872,  eight  years  after  the  discovery  of 


ERRATA. 


Page  81,  line  2,  for  Delaware  read  Susquehannok. 
Page  81,  line  4,  for  Delaware  read  Susquehannok. 


piece).  .By  wetting  Ins  thumb  and  rubbing  it  ne  could  see 
strange  lines  and  a  carving  representing  an  animal  like  an 
elephant,  but  without  troubling  his  boyish  head  much  about 
it,  he  carried  it  several  days  in  his  pocket,  and  finally 
locked  it  up  in  his  chest,  where,  along  with  his  other 
relics,  arrow-heads,  spear-points,  axes,  and  broken  banner 
stones,  thrown  in  from  time  to  time  as  he  found  them  on 
the  farm,  it  remained  until  the  spring  of  1881,  when  he 
sold  it  to  Mr.  Henry  Paxon,  son  of  a  well-known  resident 
of  the  neighborhood,  then  a  youth  of  nineteen,  and  with 
a  fancy  for  collecting  Indian  antiquities,  in  whose  pos- 


iv  PREFACE. 

wished  only  to  be  impartial,  and  to  be  led  by  the  facts 
as  they  have  presented  themselves,  and  for  the  examina 
tion  of  which  his  opportunities  have  been  peculiarly 
favorable. 

In  his  knowledge  of  the  neighborhood  and  its  people 
(his  home),  an  acquaintance  with  all  the  persons  con 
cerned,  and  very  frequent  visits  to  the  Hansell  Farm, 
nothing  has  yet  occurred  to  shake  his  faith  in  the  unim- 


ance  of  human  figures  in  the  carving,  and  of  many  sym 
bols  which  seem  related  to  highly  important  branches  of 
archaeological  study,  would  awaken  a  more  general  and 
enthusiastic  interest  in  the  Stone,  than  has  been  felt  for 
any  other  prehistoric  representation  of  the  great  elephant. 
A  disbelief  in  its  authenticity  would  leave  us  with  an 
interest,  not  inconsiderable,  in  the  unknown  person  who, 
after  months  of  careful  study  and  preparation,  could  have 
conceived  and  executed  so  remarkable  a  fraud. 


THE    LENAPE    STONE. 


IN  the  spring  of  1872,  eight  years  after  the  discovery  of 
the  famous  mammoth  carving  in  the  cave  ot  La  Made 
leine,  Perigord,  France,  Barnard  Hansell,  a  young  farmer, 
while  ploughing  on  his  father's  farm,  four  miles  and 
a  half  east  of  Doylestown,  Bucks  County,  Pennsylva 
nia,  saw,  to  use  his  own  words,  a  "  queer  stone "  lying 
on  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  close  to  the  edge  of  the 
new  furrow.  The  plough  had  just  missed  turning  it 
under.  He  stopped  and  picked  it  up  ;  it  was  the  larger 
piece  of  the  fractured  "  gorget  stone,"  in  fig.  I,  (frontis 
piece).  By  wetting  his  thumb  and  rubbing  it  he  could  see 
strange  lines  and  a  carving  representing  an  animal  like  an 
elephant,  but  without  troubling  his  boyish  head  much  about 
it,  he  carried  it  several  days  in  his  pocket,  and  finally 
locked  it  up  in  his  chest,  where,  along  with  his  other 
relics,  arrow-heads,  spear-points,  axes,  and  broken  banner 
stones,  thrown  in  from  time  to  time  as  he  found  them  on 
the  farm,  it  remained  until  the  spring  of  iSSi,  when  he 
sold  it  to  Mr.  Henry  Paxon,  son  of  a  well-known  resident 
of  the  neighborhood,  then  a  youth  of  nineteen,  and  with 
a  fancy  for  collecting  Indian  antiquities,  in  whose  pos- 


2  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

session  it  still  remains.1  At  the  moment  of 'the  purchase 
no  particular  attention  had  been  paid  to  the  carvings, 
and  the  new  owner  was  not  certain  that  he  had  noticed 
the  mammoth  while  at  Hansell's  house,  or  until  a  few 
hours  later,  when  he  had  brought  home  his  trophies  and 
shown  them  to  his  father,  who  distinctly  remembers  call 
ing  his  son's  attention  to  the  rude  outline  of  an  elephant 
upon  the  stone. 

But  without  doubt  the  singular  part  of  the  story  is  the 
unexpected  finding  of  the  smaller  piece  of  the  fractured 
stone  a  few  months  later.  After  many  ineffectual  searches 
for  it  in  the  intervening  years,  it  was  picked  up  by  Hansell 
while  corn-husking  with  his  brother  in  the  same  field  and 
at  the  same  spot  where  nine  years  before  the  first  piece  had 
been  found.  This  luckily  discovered  fragment  Hansell 
presented  to  Mr.  Paxon.  Several  persons  of  the  neigh 
borhood  had  seen  the  stone  at  Mr.  Faxon's  house  both 
before  and  after  the  discovery  of  the  second  piece,  but  it 
was  not  until  both  parts  had  been  some  months  in  his  pos 
session  that  any  unusual  interest  was  attached  to  it  even 
by  him. 

Some  time  in  July,  1882,  Captain  J.  S.  Bailey,  of  the 
Bucks  County  Historical  Society,  to  whom  the  writer  in 
preparing  the  present  article  must  acknowledge  his  great 
indebtedness,  and  who  first  called  serious  attention  to  the 
archaeological  value  of  the  stone,  made  it  the  subject  of 
a  paper  read  before  the  Society,  but  since  that  time, 

1  See  Hansell's  sworn  statement  in  the  appendix. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE,  3 

although  displayed  at  a  county  exhibition  and  twice 
shown  at  meetings  of  the  Society  above  mentioned,  this 
remarkable  relic  has  remained  unheard  of. 

This  is  the  simple  story  of  most  great  archaeological  dis 
coveries  ;  no  "  man  of  science  "  was  at  hand  to  analyze  the 
condition  of  the  surrounding  soil,  or  satisfy  himself  that  a 
fraud  had  not  been  committed,  and  a  hundred  questions 
now  arise  as  to  the  finder  of  the  stone,  and  its  present 
owner,  its  long  unrecognized  importance,  the  whereabouts 
of  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania,  etc.,  etc.  The  "modern 
scientist  "  will  by  no  means  be  satisfied  with  such  evi 
dence  as  would  be  held  sufficient  in  a  court  of  law,  and 
every  fraud  that  has  been  perpetrated  upon  the  lover  of 
Indian  relics  adds  to  the  necessity  of  carefully  examining 
each  detail  of  the  discovery — nothing  must  be  believed 
except  upon  the  strongest  evidence. 

For  a  full  discussion  of  this  evidence  the  reader  is 
referred  to  the  appendix. 

Several  circumstances  seem  to  concur  in  adding  to  the 
novelty  of  the  discovery.  In  the  first  place  the  carving  has 
been  made  upon  one  of  the  so-called  "  gorget  stones,"  than 
which  no  class  of  Indian  relics  have  been  more  puzzling  to 
archaeologists.  Our  museums  are  well-supplied  with  these 
mysterious  perforated  tablets  of  slate,  generally  resembling 
in  size  and  shape  the  stone  represented  in  fig.  i,  and  which 
are  found  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States.  Ornaments, 
talismans,  breastplates,  or  buttons,  as  we  may  choose  to  call 
them,  they  seem  to  have  been  the  peculiar  property  of  the 


4  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

North  American  Indian,  without  a  counterpart,  as  far  as  the 
writer  can  learn,  in  the  stone  implements  of  other  uncivil 
ized  races.  They  seem  often  to  have  been  buried  with 
the  dead  warrior  and  when  discovered  in  Indian  graves  are 
generally  close  to  the  breast  of  the  skeleton.1  Gorgets 
are  frequently  scratched  and  scribbled  upon,  and  orna 
mental  zig-zags  and  cross-lines,  like  the  faint  scratches 
plainly  to  be  seen  on  the  Lenape  stone  crossing  the 
carvings  in  all  directions,  are  not  uncommon  on  these 
stones,  pipes,  banner  stones,  and  other  Indian  implements  ; 
but  picture-writings  proper,  such  as  are  commonly  found 
painted  upon  buffalo  robes,  scratched  upon  birch  bark,  or 
carved  upon  the  face  of  cliffs  or  large  boulders,  are  ex 
ceedingly  rare  on  small  stones,  and  the  tablet  in  question 
is  the  only  known  instance,  the  writer  believes,  of  a  pic 
tured  gorget.  The  carving,  when  compared  with  the 
larger  and  more  conventional  Muzzinabiks  or  rock-writ 
ings  and  birch-bark  records  of  the  Indians,  seems  to  lack 
much  of  the  symbolic  obscurity  common  to  these  produc 
tions  of  the  prophets  and  medicine  men.  It  doubtless  be- 

1  Nothing  seems  to  contribute  so  much  to  the  problem  of  their  use  as  the 
absence,  in  most  cases,  of  any  sign  of  friction  around  the  holes.  Similar 
stones  have  been  recently  seen  in  use  hy  the  Pah-Utes  of  Southern  Nevada, 
"  for  giving  uniform  size  to  their  bow-strings,"  yet  the  clean  edges  of  the 
perforations  make  it  impossible  to  believe  that  these  stones  could  have  been 
used  for  such  a  purpose,  while  the  difficulty  of  supposing  they  could  have 
been  used  as  buttons,  or  that  they  could  have  been  suspended  at  all  is  almost 
as  great,  unless  we  adopt  the  very  ingenious  theory  of  Dr.  F.  W.  Putnam,  i.e., 
that  the  raw  deer  thong  used  for  suspending  them,  and  forced  tightly 
through  the  holes,  becoming  hard  when  dry,  remained  motionless  in  its 
place,  and  rendered  friction  impossible. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  5 

longs  to  the  less  hieratic  class  of  writings,  known  among 
the  Algonkins  as  "  Kekeewin,"  which  dealt  with  things 
generally  understood  by  the  tribe. 

It  is  unquestionably  a  picture  of  a  combat  between 
savages  and  the  hairy  mammoth — an  encounter  such  as 
our  imagination  has  not  yet  connected  with  the  ancient 
forests  of  America,  and  drawn  as  well  as  an  Indian  who 
had  seen  the  great  monster  could  have  drawn  it.  Most 
of  the  figures  seem  represented  according  to  the  common 
conventional  method  of  the  modern  Indians,  yet  there  is 
certainly  a  seeming  picturesque  relation  between  them  of 
which  we  can  find  no  example  in  the  few  ancient  Indian 
pictographs  which  have  been  preserved  to  us.  We  can 
almost  fancy  a  foreground,  a  distance,  and  a  faint  chiaro- 
oscuro. 

The  combat  we  might  imagine  takes  place  on  the  con 
fines  of  a  forest,  and  if  we  may  judge  from  an  upward  incli 
nation  of  the  foreground  on  the  right,  at  the  base  of  a  hill 
side.  The  monster,  angry,  and  with  erect  tail,  approaches 
the  forest,  in  which,  through  the  pine  trunks,  are  seen  the 
wigwams  of  an  Indian  village.  In  the  sky  overhead,  and  as 
if  presiding  over  the  event,  are  ranged  the  powers  of 
heaven  :  forked  lightning  flashes  through  the  tree-tops,  and 
from  between  a  planet  and  the  crescent  moon,  beyond 
which  we  seem  to  see  a  constellation  (represented  by  a 
series  of  crossed  lines)  and  two  stars,  the  sun's  face  looks 
down  upon  the  scene.  Four  human  forms  confront  the 
monster,  the  first  holds  in  his  right  hand  a  bow  from 


6  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

which  the  arrow  just  discharged  is  sticking  in  the  side  of 
the  enraged  beast,  and  in  his  left,  if  it  is  not  planted  in 
the  ground,  a  long  lance  ;  a  second  warrior  with  head 
dress  of  feathers  stands  farther  tp  the  right  ;  and  still 
farther,  and  near  what  may  perhaps  be  called  a  rock,  a 
third  sits  upon  the  ground  apparently  smoking  a  pipe.  A 
fourth  figure  is  easily  distinguishable  trampled  under  the 
fore  feet  of  the  mammoth. 

The  strong  effect  upon  the  fancy  of  the  rude  carving,  as 
/we  gaze  upon  it,  would  be  hard  indeed  to  resist.  Its 
stern  naivete  and  characteristic  lack  of  aesthetic  purpose 
bring  upon  the  mind  a  haunting  sense  of  the  reality  of 
the  event  it  represents,  and  our  sympathies  seem  genuinely 
awakened  for  the  four  human  beings  who  have  dared  to 
confront  the  monster  with  their  rude  weapons  of  stone, 
yet  whose  destiny,  like  that  of  their  huge  antagonist,  is 
cfvershadowed  by  the  near  presence  of  a  supernatural 
power,  seen  in  the  great  phenomena  of  nature  which  the 
artist  has  connected  with  the  scene.  Well  might  the 
appearance  of  the  hairy  mammoth  have  excited  in  the 
superstitious  mind  of  the  Indian  hunter  fancies  more 
wild  than  those  contained*  in  the  carving.  Hardly  more 
thrilling  could  have  been  the  coming  of  the  white  men  in 
ships,  or  the  sound  of  their  cannon,  than  the  sight  of  one 
of  these  ungainly  monsters  in  the  shadows  of  a  primeval 
forest,  or  the  crash  of  his  irresistible  advance  through  the 
underbrush. 

*     *     *     "  dat  euntibus  vngens 
Silva  locum  et  magno  cedunt  virgulta  fragore." 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  7 

Beckendorff,  a  Russian  engineer,  who,  in  1846,  saw  a 
carcass  entire,  "  a  black,  horrible,  giant-like  mass,"  floating 
on  one  of  the  rivers  of  Siberia,  declared  that  its  appear 
ance  to  that  of  a  modern  Indian  elephant  was  as  "  that 
of  a  coarse  ugly  dray-horse  to  an  Arab  steed."  He  also 
noticed  a  ridge  of  stiff  hair  like  a  mane  about  a  foot  in 
length  and  extending  above  the  shoulders  and  along  the 
back. 

Its  size,  like  that  of  the  modern  elephant,  must  have 
varied  considerably.  The  famous  St.  Petersburg  skeleton 
measures  but  nine  feet  in  height,  while  that  in  the  Royal 
Museum  of  Natural  History  in  Brussels  reaches  eleven 
feet,  and  the  animal  in  the  carving,  judging  from  the 
relative  size  of  the  figures,  would  have  been  still  larger 
than  Beckendorffs  carcass,  which  he  declares  measured 
thirteen  feet  in  height.  Geology  tells  us  much  of  the 
aspect,  epoch,  habits,  and  range  of  the  mammoth  ;  that 
it  had  appeared  later  than  the  mastodon,  and  somewhere 
in  the  age  known  as  the  Pliocene  ;  that  there  were  several 
species — three  at  least — two  of  which  were  inhabitants  of 
America ;  that  in  North  America  it  ranged  from  Behring 
Strait  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  in  E-ttPope  from  the 
extremity  of  Eastern  Siberia  as  far  south  as  Rome  and 
the  Pyrenees  ;  that  it  fed  upon  the  branches  of  the  fir, 
birch,  poplar,  willow,  etc.,  and  was  probably  migratory  in 
its  habits,  wandering  toward  grazing  grounds  in  the  north 
in  summer,  and  southward  in  winter. 

The  long  shaggy  hair  with  which  it  was  clothed,  dis- 


8  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

tinguishing  it  in  appearance  from  the  modern  elephant 
and  its  smaller  contemporary,  the  mastodon,  was  com 
posed  of  three  distinct  suits :  the  longest,  rough,  black 
bristles,  about  eighteen  inches  in  length ;  the  next,  a  coat 
of  finer  close-set  hair,  fawn-colored,  from  nine  to  ten 
inches  long;  and  the  last,  a  soft,  reddish  wool,  about 
five  inches  long,  filling  up  the  interstices  between  the 
other  hair,  and  enabling  the  animal  to  withstand  an  arctic 
cold. 

The  enormous  tusks  measured  along  the  curve  from 
eleven  to  fifteen  feet,  and  curved  quite  abruptly  outward 
and  backward. 

The  massive  grinder,  sometimes  weighing  seventeen 
pounds,  was  a  conspicuous  characteristic  ;  the  whole  of 
its  surface  was  not  brought  into  use  at  once,  but  success 
ively,  new  grinding-points  being  formed  from  behind  as 
the  outer  and  older  points  wore  away. 

Several  etymologies  have  been  given  for  the  name 
"mammoth";  among  others,  the  word  " behemoth"  in 
the  Book  of  Job,  and  the  Arabic  word  "  mehemot,"  signi 
fying  an  elephant  of  very  'large  size.  One  of  the  most 
interesting  is  the  Tartar  word  "  mamma,"  meaning  the 
earth,  suggested  by  Pallas,  a  Russian  scientist,  who  first 
gave  a  description  of  the  animal.  "  The  Tungooses  and 
Yakoots,"  he  says,  "believed  that  this  animal  worked  its 
way  in  the  earth  like  a  mole.  The  mammoths  had 
retired,  they  say,  into  great  caverns  from  which  they 
never  emerge,  but  wander  to  and  fro  in  the  galleries; 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  9 

and  as  they  pass  into  one  the  roof  of  the  gallery  rises, 
and  the  roof  of  the  one  just  vacated  sinks.  The  moment 
this  animal  sees  the  light  it  dies,  and  the  reason  why  so 
many  carcasses  have  been  exposed  to  view  is  because  of 
their  having  been  deceived  by  the  irregular  conformation 
of  the  earth's  surface,  thus  unintentionally  venturing 
beyond  the  confines  of  darkness."  l 

Mastodon  and  mammoth  bones  have  been  discovered 
in  Europe  from  the  earliest  times,  and  a  history  of  the 
remarkable  theories  to  which  they  had  given  rise  before 
the  time  of  Cuvier  is  very  interesting.  By  the  learned  of 
by-gone  times  the  fossils  have  been  mistaken  for  the  bones 
of  Ajax,  the  "  body  of  Orestes,"  unicorns,  the  teeth  of  St. 
Christopher,  and  the  remains  of  Hannibal's  elephants.  The 
middle  ages  have  given  us  a  whole  library  on  the  subject 
of  a  race  of  giants,  whose  remains  were  clearly  recognized 
in  the  huge  bones. 

In  America,  in  colonial  times,  Governor  Dudley,  of 
Massachusetts,  was  "  perfectly  of  opinion"  that  the  mas 
todon  tooth  discovered  near  Albany  in  1705  "will  agree 
only  to  a  human  body,  for  whom  the  flood  only  could 
prepare  a  funeral ;  and  without  doubt  he  waded  as  long 
as  he  could  keep  his  head  above  the  clouds,  but  must  at 
length  be  confounded  with  all  other  creatures." 

At  what  period  the  monster  became  extinct  in  Europe 
is  a  question  to  which  geology  gives  no  answer  from  the 

1  See  an  interesting  little  book,  from  which  we  here  quote,  entitled 
"Mastodon,  Mammoth,  and  Man."  By  J.  P.  McLean.  Cincinnati,  1880. 


10  THE  LENAPE   STONE, 

point  of  view  of  human  history.  The  evidence  rests  upon 
the  variously  computed  age  of  the  beds  in  which  the 
fossil  bones  occur.  In  France,  for  instance,  it  is  known 
that  the  mammoth,  whose  bones  are  found  in  the  strata 
underlying,  and  therefore  older  than,  the  Somme  Valley 
peat,  became  extinct  before  the  peat  stratum,  thirty  feet 
thick,  which  contains  no  bones,  had  formed.  It  had  grown, 
says  M.  Boucher  de  Perthes,  at  the  rate  of  three  inches  in 
a  hundred  years  ;  and  if,  as  geologists  say,  the  mammoth 
bones  of  Niagara  Falls  were  deposited  in  their  bed  before 
six  miles  of  the  present  river  gorge  were  worn  by  the 
cataract  out  of  the  solid  rock,  they  may  be,  according  to 
Lyell,  31,000,  or  Desors,  380,000  years  old. 

In  Siberia,  whence  most  of  our  information  comes,  many 
carcasses  of  these  huge  animals  have  been  found  preserved 
entire  in  the  frozen  mud.  When  and  how  did  they  per 
ish  ?  Possibly,  says  the  geologist,  all  at  once,  overwhelmed 
by  some  sudden  cataclysm,  which,  burying  the  carcasses 
in  the  mud,  was  immediately  followed  by  an  intense  cold 
that  has  lasted  ever  since ;  possibly,  again,  great  freshets 
in  the  northern  rivers,  overtaking  the  migrating  herds, 
swept  their  carcasses  from  warmer  regions  to  the  shores 
of  the  Polar  Sea. 

In  Europe,  the  fact  that  the  mammoth  survived  into 
the  human  period  was  proved  some  years  ago  by  the 
discovery  of  human  stone  implements  associated  with 
mammoth  bones  in  the  river  gravels  of  the  Somme  Val 
ley,  France,  and  in  the  Virgin  Cave  at  Brixham,  South 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  II 

Devon,  England  ;  but  more  interesting  still,  was  the 
discovery  of  prehistoric  carvings  of  the  great  elephant, 
sketches  from  nature  made  by  the  "  cave-men,"  and  found 
in  their  subterranean  dwellings  along  the  river  Dordogne 
in  France,  illustrations  of  which  will  be  given  in  the  fol 
lowing  pages. 

In  America,  we  have  traces  of  a  race  of  savages  as  old 
or  older  than  the  now  famous  river-drift  and  cave-men  of 
Europe.  Since  the  "  Calaveras  Man  "  lived,  a  valley,  say 
geologists,  has  been  metamorphosed,  by  the  slow  processes 
of  nature,  into  a  mountain  ;  and  the  "  San  Joachim  plum 
met,"  the  "  Trenton  gravel-flints,"  and  stone  implements 
from  the  gold-bearing  gravels  of  California,  all  speak  of  a 
race  of  human  beings  who  must  have  lived  in  the  time  of 
the  hairy  mammoth. 

But  who  were  these  people  ?  Were  they  Indians  ?  or 
had  the  Indian  or  his  ancestor  the  mound-builder  not  yet 
appeared  ?  and  how  many  thousands  or  tens  of  thousands 
of  years  ago  did  they  exist  ?  These  are  questions  which 
archaeology  has  not  yet  answered. 

Here,  however,  with  the  carving  before  us  we  need  not  go 
back  so  far,  nor  beyond  the  Indian  as  we  know  him — the 
fierce,  roving,  bauble-loving,  picture-making  hunter  of  to 
day.  A  study  of  the  wonderful  outlines  on  the  stone  will 
lead  us  through  a  period  of  his  history  extending  over 
many  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands,  of  years  before  the 
coming  of  Columbus ;  and  here  we  may  try  to  read,  from 
the  few  vestiges  of  this  time  that  chance  has  preserved 


12  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

to  us,  fragments  of  his  picturesque  mythology,  strange 
legends  of  his  origin  and  wanderings  over  a  forest-covered 
continent,  and  the  thrilling  story  of  the  mound-builders, 
and  of  long  wars  when  the  forest  soil  for  centuries  was  a 
"  dark  and  bloody  ground." 

That  the  mammoth  had  survived  into  the  time  of  the 
Indian  can  hardly  be  doubted.  Early  travellers  had  fre 
quently  seen  its  bones  at  the  "  Big-Bone  Licks  "  in  Ken 
tucky,  whither  the  huge  animals  had  come,  like  the  deer 
and  buffalo  of  modern  times,  to  lick  the  salt.  The  great 
bones  often  seemed  hardly  older  than  those  of  the  modern 
animals  with  which  they  were  mingled,  and,  judging  from 
their  position  along  the  modern  buffalo-trails  through  the 
forest,  it  seems  that  the  latter  animals  had  followed  the 
ancient  tracks  of  the  mammoth  to  and  from  the  licks. 

Not  a  few  of  these  early  travellers  thought  it  worth 
their  while  to  question  the  Indians  about  the  huge  bones 
and  note  down  their  answers.  Jefferson,  in  his  "  Notes 
on  Virginia,"  devotes  several  pages  to  the  subject.  He 
even  believes  the  mammoth  to  be  still  in  existence  in  his 
time  in  some  remote  part  of  the  American  continent. 
He  tells  the  story  of  a  Mr.  Stanley,  who,  "  taken  prisoner 
by  the  Indians  near  the  mouth  of  the  Tanissee,"  relates 
that  "  after  being  transferred  through  several  tribes  from 
one  to  another,  he  was  at  length  carried  over  the  moun 
tains  west  of  the  Missouri  to  a  river  which  runs  west- 

1  A  term,  says  Filson  (Imlays'  Topographical  Description  of  the  Western 
Territory,  2d  Ed.,  p.  276)  formerly  applied  by  the  Indians  "  to  the  fertile 
region  now  called  Kentucky." 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  13 

wardly;  that  these  bones  abounded  there,  and  that  the 
natives  described  to  him  the  animal  to  which  they  be 
longed  as  still  existing  in  the  northern  parts  of  their 
country,  from  which  description  he  judged  it  to  be  an 
elephant." 

Further,  in  support  of  his  theory,  he  gives  an  Indian 
tradition  of  a  great  monster  known  as  the  Big  Buffalo, 
and  obtained,  he  says,  from  a  Delaware  chief  by  one  of 
the  governors  of  Virginia  during  the  American  Revolu 
tion.  Nothing  has  seemed  more  interesting  in  a  study  of 
the  carvings  on  the  Lenape  Stone  than  the  remarkable 
similarity  between  this  tradition  of  the  Lenni  Lenape  or 
Delawares  and  the  carvings  on  this  relic,  discovered  in  the 
middle  of  their  ancient  territory.  The  chief,  as  the  account 
runs,  being  asked  as  to  the  bones  at  the  Big-Bone  Licks  in 
Kentucky,  says  that  it  was  a  tradition  handed  down  from  his 
fathers  that  "  in  ancient  times  a  herd  of  these  tremendous 
animals  came  to  the  Big-Bone  Licks  and  began  a  universal 
destruction  of  the  bear,  deer,  elks,  buffaloes,  and  other 
animals  which  had  been  created  for  the  use  of  the  Indians. 
That  the  Great  Man  above,  looking  down  and  seeing  this, 
was  so  enraged  that  he  seized  his  lightning,  descended  on 
the  earth,  seated  himself  on  a  neighboring  mountain,  on  a 
rock  on  which  his  seat  and  the  print  of  his  feet  are  still  to 
be  seen,  and  hurled  his  bolts  among  them  till  the  whole 
were  slaughtered  except  the  big  bull,  who,  presenting  his 
forehead  to  the  shafts,  shook  them  off  as  they  fell ;  but 
missing  one  at  length,  it  wounded  him  in  the  side,  where- 


14  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

on,  springing  around,  he  bounded  over  the  Ohio,  over  the 
Wabache,  the  Illinois,  and  finally  over  the  great  lakes, 
where  he  is  still  living  at  this  day." 

Making  due  allowance  for  translation,  and  a  reasonable 
amount  of  garbling,  the  points  of  similarity  between  the 
carving  and  the  tradition — the  great  man  above  (the  sun) 
looking  down,  the  lightning,  and  the  big  bull  presenting 
his  forehead  to  the  shafts,  and  at  length  wounded  in  the 
side — are  very  striking ;  and  if  we  compare  the  curious 
circle  enclosing  a  dot,  on  the  inclined  foreground  to  the 
right,  with  the  "  neigboring  mountain,"  and  the  foot 
print  on  the  rock  of  the  tradition,  the  correspondence 
seems  again  too  unusual  for  mere  coincidence.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  tradition  says  nothing  of  warriors  or  wig 
wams,  or  of  planets,  moon,  and  stars,  yet  these  differences 
may  naturally  be  accounted  for  if  we  suppose  the  stone 
older  than  the  tradition,  and  that  in  the  latter  the  local 
and  matter-of-fact  elements  of  time,  place,  and  human 
agency  would  have  been  the  first  to  fade  away  as  time 
went  on.  But  this  is  not  the  only  Indian  tradition  of  a 
great  monster — presumably  the  mammoth — which  has 
been  preserved  to  us. 

The  element  of  divine  wrath,  common  to  monster 
myths  among  barbarous  peoples,  again  occurs  in  a  Wyandot 
version  of  the  same  tradition,  taken  down  from  a  band  of 
Iroquois  and  Wyandots  by  Colonel  G.  Croghan,  at  the 
Salt  Licks  in  Kentucky  in  1748,  and  given  in  Winter- 
botham's  "  History  of  the  United  States,"  vol.  iii.,  page  1 39. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  15 

The  head  chief,  says  the  writer,  having  been  flattered 
with  presents  of  tobacco,  paint,  ammunition,  etc.,  on 
being  asked  about  the  large  bones,  related  the  ancient  tra 
dition  of  his  people  as  follows:  "  That  the  red  man, 
placed  on  this  island  by  the  Great  Spirit,  had  been  exceed 
ingly  happy  for  ages,  but  foolish  young  people  forgetting 
his  rules  became  ill-tempered  and  wicked,  in  consequence 
of  which  the  Great  Spirit  created  the  Great  Buffalo,  the 
bones  of  which  we  now  see  before  us.  These  made  war 
upon  the  human  species  alone,  and  destroyed  all  but  a  few, 
who  repented  and  promised  the  Great  Spirit  to  live  accord 
ing  to  his  laws  if  he  would  restrain  the  devouring  enemy ; 
whereupon  he  sent  lightning  and  thunder,  and  destroyed 
the  whole  race  in  this  spot,  two  excepted,  a  male  and 
female,  whom  he  shut  up  in  yonder  mountain,  ready  to 
let  loose  again  should  occasion  require." 

David  Cusic,  the  Tuscarora  Indian,  in  his  history  of  the 
Iroquois,  among  other  instances,  speaks  of  the  Big  Quis- 
quis,1  a  terrible  monster  who  invaded  at  an  early  time  the 
Indian  settlements  by  Lake  Ontario,  and  was  at  length 
driven  back  by  the  warriors  from  several  villages  after  a  se 
vere  engagement  ;  and  of  the  Big  Elk,  another  great  beast, 
who  invaded  the  towns  with  fury  and  was  at  length  killed 
in  a  great  fight  ;  and  Elias  Johnson,  the  Tuscarora  chief, 
in  his  "  History  of  the  Six  Nations,"  speaks  of  another 
monster  that  appeared  at  an  early  period  in  the  history  of 
his  people,  "  which  they  called  Oyahguaharh,  supposed  to 

1  A  word  meaning  "  hog  "  in  modern  Iroquois. 


1 6  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

be  some  great  mammoth  who  was  furious  against  men, 
and  destroyed  the  lives  of  many  Indian  hunters,  but  who 
was  at  length  killed  after  a  long  and  severe  contest." 

Another  instance  of  a  terrible  monster  desolating  the 
country  of  a  certain  tribe  "  with  thunder  and  fire  "  ap 
pears  in  a  collection  of  Wyandot  traditions  published  by 
one  William  Walker,  an  Indian  agent,  in  1823  ;  and 
again  the  great  beast  appears  in  the  song  tradition  of  the 
"  Father  of  Oxen,"  from  Canada,  and  in  a  monster  tradi 
tion  from  Louisiana,  both  spoken  of  by  Fabri,  a  French 
officer,  in  a  letter  to  Buffon  from  America  in  1748. 

"  The  Reliquae  Aquitanicae,"  published  by  Lartet  and 
Christy,  page  60,  quotes  a  letter  from  British  America  of 
Robert  Brown  to  Professor  Rupert  Jones,  which  speaks  of  a 
tradition  common  to  several  widely  separated  tribes  in  the 
Northwest,  of  lacustrine  habitations  built  by  their  ances 
tors  to  protect  themselves  against  an  animal  who  ravaged 
the  country  a  long  time  ago. 

Hardly  less  remarkable  in  its  description  of  the  animal 
than  any  of  the  others  is,  perhaps,  the  Great  Elk  tradition 
as  mentioned  by  Charlevoix  in  his  "  History  of  New 
France." 

"  There  is  current  among  these  barbarians,"  says  the 
author,  "  a  pleasant-enough  tradition  of  a  Great  Elk, 
beside  whom  all  others  seem  like  ants.  He  has,  they  say, 
legs  so  high  that  eight  feet  of  snow  does  not  embarrass 
him,  his  skin  is  proof  against  all  sorts  of  weapons,  and  he 
has  a  sort  of  arm  which  comes  out  of  his  shoulder  and 
which  he  uses  as  we  do  ours." 


THE  LENAPE  STONE.  17 

Whatever  we  may  have  previously  thought  of  these 
legends,  their  evidence  now  combined  with  that  of  the 
carving  is  irresistible.  Nothing  but  the  mammoth  itself, 
surviving  into  comparatively  recent  times  and  encountered 
by  the  Indians,  could  suffice  to  account  for  the  carving, 
and  we  can  no  longer  suppose  that  the  size  and  unusual 
appearance  of  the  mammoth  bones  seen  by  the  Indians 
in  Kentucky  could  alone  have  originated  the  traditions. 

In  the  carving,  we  have  the  most  interesting  mammoth 
picture  in  existence ;  not  a  mere  drawing  of  the  animal 
itself,  but  a  picture  of  primitive  life,  in  which  the  mam 
moth  takes  a  conspicuous  part  in  the  actions  and  thoughts 
of  man, — a  carving  made  with  a  bone  or  flint  instrument 
upon  a  tablet  of  slate  at  least  four  hundred  years  ago, — the 
hairy  elephant,  drawn  in  unmistakable  outline,  and  at 
tacked  by  human  beings, — a  battle-scene  which  thrills  our 
imagination,  and  the  importance  of  which  the  ancient 
draughtsman  magnifies  by  the  introduction  of  the  symbols 
of  his  religion,  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  and  the  light 
ning  alone  powerful  to  overthrow  the  great  enemy. 

All  is  evidently  the  work  of  the  Indian  ;  so  would  he 
rudely  carve  trees,  the  pine  with  its  straight-spreading 
arms,  like  a  modern  telegraph  pole  ;  his  forest  wigwam,  a 
simple  triangle ;  the  sun,  with  human  face,  and  a  halo  ; 
and  the  moon,  a  crescent ;  the  stars  were  small  crosses, 
and  diverging  lines  were  the  rays  of  light  that  traversed 
the  sky  from  the  great  luminaries.  Men  were  triangles 
with  their  sides  produced,  and  three  dots  in  the  head  for 


1 8  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

eyes,  nose,  and  mouth  ;  here  the  minute  forms  standing 
their  ground  before  the  great  beast,  are  warriors,  with 
feathers  in  their  hair,  and  bows  and  lances  in  their  hands. 
The  chief  figure,  the  great  buffalo,  or  the  great  elk  of 
Charlevoix,  armed  with  a  proboscis,  as  the  Indians  may 
well  have  named  the  mammoth,  is  assailed,  as  in  the  Jef 
ferson  tradition,  by  lightning. 

Between  such  a  monster,  however  inoffensive  in  its 
habits,  and  the  Indian  hunter,  there  could  be  no  peace  ; 
his  size  and  terrific  appearance  were  enough  for  the 
superstitious  fancy  of  the  red  man,  and  as  he  browses 
harmlessly  near  the  village  he  is  attacked ;  then  his  rage 
transforms  him  into  the  fierce  enemy  and  destroyer  of 
mankind  remembered  in  the  traditions.  As  naively  repre 
sented  in  the  carving,  he  tramples  men  to  a  pulp  under  his 
feet  with  the  ungovernable  fury  of  a  modern  elephant, 
and  overturns  whole  villages  of  fragile  wigwams,  while  his 
anger  perhaps  vents  itself  in  loud  bellowings  ;  arrows  and 
spears  only  annoy  him  ;  he  must  be  destroyed  by  the 
lightnings  of  the  Great  Spirit  to  whom  the  medicine  men 
pray  for  help. 

A  remarkable  story,  alleged  in  support  of  the  coexistence 
of  the  Indian,  and  the  mammoth's  great  contemporary 
the  mastodon,  regarded  by  most  scientists  with  distrust, 
though  defended  by  some,  was  that  of  Dr.  Albert  Koch, 
a  collector  of  curiosities,  who  in  1839  disinterred  the 
skeleton  of  a  mastodon  in  a  clay  bed  near  the  Bourboise 
River,  Gasconade  County,  Missouri.  Associated  with 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  19 

the  bones  Koch  claimed  to  have  discovered,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  a  number  of  witnesses,  a  layer  of  wood-ashes, 
numerous  fragments  of  rock,  "  some  arrow-heads,  a  stone 
spear-point,  and  several  stone  axes,"  evidencing  he 
claimed,  that  the  huge  animal  had  met  its  untimely  end 
at  the  hands  of  savages,  who,  armed  with  rude  weapons 
of  stone  and  boulders  brought  from  the  bed  of  the  neigh 
boring  river,  had  attacked  it,  while  helplessly  mired  in 
the  soft  clay,  and  finally  effected  its  destruction  by  fire. 

Koch  also  published  with  his  statement  and  in  connec 
tion  with  another  skeleton,  that  of  the  Mastodon  giganteus 
discovered  by  him  in  Benton  County,  Missouri,  a  tradition 
of  the  Osage  Indians,  in  whose  former  territory  the  bones 
were  found,  and  which  he  says  led  him  to  the  discovery. 
It  states,  says  Koch,  "  that  there  was  a  time  when  the 
Indians  paddled  their  canoes  over  the  now  extensive 
prairies  of  Missouri  and  encamped  or  hunted  on  the  bluffs. 
That  at  a  certain  period  many  large  and  monstrous  animals 
came  from  the  eastward  along  and  up  the  Mississippi  and 
Missouri  rivers,  upon  which  the  animals  that  had  pre 
viously  occupied  the  country  became  very  angry,  and  at 
last  so  enraged  and  infuriated  by  reason  of  these  intrusions, 
that  the  red  man  durst  not  venture  out  to  hunt  any  more, 
and  was  consequently  reduced  to  great  distress.  At  this 
time  a  large  number  of  these  huge  monsters  assembled 
here,  when  a  terrible  battle  ensued,  in  which  many  on  both 
sides  were  killed,  and  the  remnant  resumed  their  march 
toward  the  setting  sun.  Near  the  bluffs  which  are  at 


20  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

present  known  by  the  name  of  the  Rocky  Ridge  one  of 
the  greatest  of  these  battles  was  fought.  Immediately 
after  the  battle  the  Indians  gathered  together  many  of  the 
slaughtered  animals  and  offered  them  up  on  the  spot  as  a 
burnt  sacrifice  to  the  Great  Spirit.  The  remainder  were 
buried  by  the  Great  Spirit  himself,  in  the  Pomme  de  Terre 
River,  which  from  this  time  took  the  name  of  the  Big- 
Bone  River,  as  well  as  the  Osage,  of  which  the  Pomme  de 
Terre  is  a  branch.  From  this  time  the  Indians  brought 
their  yearly  sacrifice  to  this  place,  and  offered  it  up  to  the 
Great  Spirit,  as  a  thank-offering  for  their  great  deliverance, 
and  more  latterly,  they  have  offered  their  sacrifice  on  the 
table  rock  above  mentioned  (a  curious  rock  near  the  spot 
of  the  discovery),  which  was  held  in  great  veneration  and 
considered  holy  ground." 

There  is  considerable  variety  of  opinion  of  late,  and 
especially  among  persons  familiar  with  the  Indians,  as  to 
the  value  of  the  information  furnished  by  their  traditions  ; 
and  certainly  among  Indians  to-day  the  separation  of 
their  pre-Columbian  from  their  later  traditions,  and  their 
traditions  proper  from  the  extravagant  relations  so  readily 
dealt  forth  by  them  extempore,  is  no  easy  matter.  Much 
stress  is  laid  on  the  absence  of  a  tradition  of  De  Soto  ;  yet, 
as  Schoolcraft  remarks,  the  Delawares  and  Mohicans  had 
in  his  time  one  of  Hudson,  the  Chippeways  of  Cartier,  and 
the  Iroquois  one  of  a  wreck  on  a  sea-coast,  and  the  extinc 
tion  of  an  infant  colony,  probably  Jamestown. 

Interest  in  the  American  elephant  has  of  late  been  con- 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  21 

siderably  increased  by  the  appearance  of  several  supposed 
representations  of  the  animal  among  the  relics  of  our 
aborigines,  drawings  of  which,  and  of  the  so-called  ele- 


Fig.  2. — Elephant  Pipe  (Louisa  Co.,  Iowa). 


Fig.  3- — Elephant  Pipe  (Louisa  Co.,  Iowa). 

phant  trunks,  and  head-dresses  from  the  architecture  of 
Mexico  and  Central  America,  are  given  in  the  following 
pages. 


22  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

Not  one  of  these  outlines  is  unmistakable,  and  all  lack 
the  characteristic  tusks  of  the  mammoth. 

Figures  2  and  3,  the  now  famous  "  elephant  pipes,"  the 
authenticity  of  which  is  doubted,  however,  in  the  last  report 
of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  came  to  light  in  Louisa 
County,  Iowa.  The  former,  discovered  in  1872  or  1873, 
was  found,  it  is  said,  on  the  surface  by  a  farmer  while 
planting  corn ;  and  the  latter,  more  interesting  from  the 
scratches  upon  it  evidently  intended  to  represent  hair,  was 
taken  from  a  mound  near  an  old  bed  of  the  Mississippi 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  Blumer  and  others  on  March  2,  1880. 
The  material  of  the  two  pipes,  which  apparently  have 
been  much  greased  and  smoked,  is  the  same — a  light- 
colored  sandstone. 

The  next  of  the  elephant  documents  is  the  so-called 
elephant  mound  of  Grant  County,  Wisconsin,  (fig.  4).  It 
was  described  by  Mr.  Jared  Warner,  of  Patch  Grove, 
Wisconsin,  on  page  416  of  the  "  Smithsonian  Report  for 
1872,"  when  public  attention  was  first  generally  called  to 
it.  The  effigy,  135  feet  long,  60  feet  broad,  and  but 
5  feet  high,  is  situated  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  just  below  the  mouth  of  the  Wisconsin,  and,  says 
Mr.  Warner,  has  been  known  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Patch  Grove  for  twenty-five  years  as  the  "  elephant 
mound."  Like  the  elephant  pipes,  however,  it  lacks  the 
characteristic  tusks,  and  sceptics  claim  that  its  original 
shape  has  been  too  much  modified  by  many  years  of  culti 
vation  to  render  judgments  concerning  it  admissible. 


THE  LENAPE  STONE.  23 

But  to  return  to  the  carving,  a  somewhat  novel  feature 
in  it,  and  one  which  has  been  objected  to  as  casting  a 
doubt  upon  its  authenticity,  is  the  spear  between  the  two 
upright  human  figures  on  the  right.  Large  flint  spear- 
points,  so-called,  are  found  abundantly  in  the  Eastern 
States,  and  within  the  last  hundred  years  instances  of  the 
use  of  the  spear  by  the  Indians  in  hunting  and  fishing  are 
common  ;  no  one  doubts,  as  we  learn,  for  instance,  in  Tan- 


Fig.  4. — Elephant  Mound  (Grant  County,  Wisconsin). 

ner's  narrative,  that  the  Indians  speared  salmon  in  the 
Eastern  rivers,  or,  as  Catlin  shows,  used  steel-pointed 
lances  in  their  Western  buffalo  hunts.  Yet  the  early 
writers,  in  their  descriptions  of  aboriginal  implements,  have 
been  supposed  to  make  no  mention  of  the  spear,  and 
there  has  been  some  controversy  among  archaeologists  as 
to  whether  it  can  be  classed  among  Indian  prehistoric 
weapons  of  warfare  or  the  chase. 


24  .  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

Dr.  Abbott,  who,  in  his  "  Prehistoric  Industry,"  has 
given  a  wood-cut  of  the  curious  egg-shaped  stone  found  at 
Lake  Winnipissiogee,  and  upon  which  there  are  several 
carvings  of  spears,  quotes  in  the  same  work,  by  way  of  the 
nearest  approach  to  an  allusion  to  the  spear  among  the 
early  writers,  a  description  from  Josselyn  of  an  elk-hunt 
among  the  early  Massachusetts  Indians,  in  which  the 
writer  describes  a  lance  made  of  a  staff  a  yard  and  a  half 
long  and  pointed  with  fish-bone.  But  a  passage  in  Bernal 
Diaz  del  Castillo  ("  Historia  verdadera  de  la  Conquista  de 
la  nueva  Espana,"  Madrid,  1638),  kindly  pointed  out  to 
the  writer  by  Dr.  Rau,  seems  to  furnish  conclusive  evi 
dence  on  the  subject.  Bernal  Diaz,  among  several  in 
stances  in  his  works,  speaks  (chapter  vi.)  of  an  attack 
upon  the  Spaniards  in  Florida  by  Indians  "  armed  with 
immense-sized  bows,  sharp  arrows,  and  spears,  among 
which  some  were  shaped  like  swords  "  ("  y  lanzas  y  unas 
a  manera  de  espadas  "). 

Furthermore  there  is  fig.  5  (plate  xiv.  from  De  Bry's 
"  Brevis  Narratio,"  published  in  Latin  in  Frankfort-on- 
the-Main  in  1591),  representing  Indians  holding  spears, 
for  which  likewise  the  writer  is  indebted  to  Dr.  Rau.  It 
was  drawn  from  life  by  one  Jacques  Le  Moyne,  a  French 
artist,  in  1564.  He  had  come  to  Florida  with  the  French 
Admiral  Laudonniere,  and  having  been  left  by  the  expe 
dition  for  some  months  at  a  fort  upon  the  St.  John's 
River,  frequently  made  sketching  expeditions  among  the 
neighboring  tribes.  Many  similar  drawings  by  him  of 


^l ,  \     ^'" 


26  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

warriors  armed  with  spears  are  to  be  found  among  the 
numerous  illustrations  in  De  Bry. 

Passing  over  the  mysterious  animal  on  one  of  the 
Davenport  tablets,  sometimes  taken  for  a  mammoth,  and 
the  pictograph  on  a  boulder  near  the  Gila  River  seen  by 
Colonel  W.  H.  Emory  in  1846  in  a  military  reconnais 
sance,1  and  which,  he  says,  "  may  with  some  stretch  of  the 
imagination  be  supposed  to  be  a  mastodon,"  we  come  to 
the  supposed  traces  of  the  elephant  noticed  by  numerous 


Fig.  6.— Elephant  Trunk  (Uxmal). 

writers  in  the  mural  paintings  and  arcnitecture  of  Mexico 
and  Central  America. 

Figures  6  and  7,  reduced  from  Catherwood's  "  Atlas " 
to  Stephens'  "Yucatan,"  are  fair  specimens  of  the  re 
markable  architectural  ornaments  from  Central  America 
known  as  elephant  trunks,  and  which,  placed  between  two 
eyes  and  a  mouth-like  cavity,  seem  at  first,  as  Waldeck 
and  other  travellers  have  remarked,  to  bear  a  striking 
resemblance  to  the  trunk  of  a  proboscidean. 

1  "Notes  of  a  Military  Reconnaissance  from  Fort  Leavenworth  to  San 
Diego,  Cal.,"  Col.  W.  H.  Emory,  Washington,  1848,  p.  90. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  27 

Figure  6  is  from  the  gateway  of  the  great  Teocallis  at 
Uxmal,  and  7  from  that  of  the  Casa  de  las  Monjos  at 
Uxmal ;  as  in  the  case  of  all  the  other  "  elephant  trunks," 
however,  they  offer  no  suggestion  of  the  prominent  tusks 
of  the  American  elephant,  and,  as  Dr.  F.  W.  Putnam 
maintains,  should  perhaps  be  looked  upon  as  grotesque 
representations  of  the  human  race,  of  which  the  so-called 
trunk  forms  the  nose. 

Far  more  striking  among  the  so-called  traces   of   the 


Fig.  7.— Elephant  Trunk  (Uxmal). 

elephant  in  North  America  are  the  priests'  head-dresses 
from  Mexico  and  Yucatan. 

Figure  8,  a  reduction  from  plate  xiii.  in  Waldeck's 
"  Recherches  sur  les  Ruines  de  Palenque,"  is  taken  from 
a  stucco  bas-relief  in  the  palace  of  Palenque.  Waldeck 
considers  it  "  evidently  a  representation  of  the  head  of  a 
proboscidean." 

Figure  9,  the  no  less  fantastic  Mexican  head-dress,  is 
from  the  Vues  des  Cordilleras,  plate  xv.  As  to  it,  Hum- 
boldtsays:  "I  would  not  have  had  this  hideous  scene 
engraved,  were  it  not  for  the  remarkable  and  apparently 


28 


THE  LENAPE   STONE. 


not  accidental  resemblance  of  the  priest's  head-dress  to 
the  Hindoo  Ganesa,  or  elephant-headed  god  of  wisdom. 
It  seems  hardly  possible  to  suppose  that  a  tapir's  snout 
could  have  suggested  the  trunk  in  the  head-dress,  and  we 
are  almost  left  to  infer  either  that  the  people  of  Atzlan 
had  received  some  notice  of  the  elephant  from  Asia,  or 
that  their  traditions  reached  back  to  the  time  of  the 
American  elephant." 


Fig.  8. — Elephant 
Head-dress  (Palenque). 


Fig.  9. — Elephant  Head-dress  (Mexico). 


It  is  interesting  to  compare  the  Lenape  Stone  with  the 
mammoth  carvings  of  the  cave-men  of  Europe,  of  which 
we  here  give  the  series.  None  of  these  outlines  equal  the 
Lenape  drawing  in  realistic  spirit  except,  perhaps  (fig.  10) 
the  most  remarkable  of  them  all,  the  celebrated  La  Made 
leine  carving.  It  is  engraved  upom  mammoth  ivory  and 
was  discovered  in  1864  in  the  cave  of  La  Madeleine,  Peri- 
gord,  France,  by  M.  Louis  Lartet.  It  was  broken  into 


THE  LENAPE   STONE. 


five  fragments,  and  like  the  carving  on  the  Lenape  Stone, 
which  it  singularly  resembles  in  general  position,  and  in 


Fig.  II. — Mammoth  Carving  from  the  Collection  of  M.  Lartet. 


Fig.  12. — Mammoth  Carving  from  the  Collection  of  M.  Lartet. 

the  indecisive  drawing  of  the  back  and  tail,  unmistakably 
represents  the  mammoth.  The  mammoth  scratching  his 
side  (fig.  11),  and  the  very  indistinct  head  (fig.  12),  carved 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  31 

on  opposite  sides  of  a  bone  plate,  are  from  the  Edouard 
Lartet  collection.  M.  Louis  Lartet,  brother  of  the  former, 
in  his  description  of  the  drawings  in  the  "  Mate"riaux  pour 
1'histoire  primitive  de  I'homme,"  vol.  ix.,  p.  33,  thinks  that 
"  the  primitive  artist  to  whom  these  rude  but  sufficiently 
faithful  representations  are  due,  and  who  changed  his 
mind  several  times  when  sketching,  had,  without  doubt, 


Fig.  13. — Mammoth  Dagger-hilt  from  the  Rock  Shelter  of  Bruniquel. 

the  living  model  before  his  eyes,  and  was  disturbed  in  his 
work  by  the  movements  of  the  animal." 

Figure  13,  is  the  mammoth  dagger-hilt  carved  in  deer 
horn,  in  the  collection  of  M.  Peccadeau  de  1'Isle.  It  was 
discovered  in  the  rock  shelter  of  Bruniquel  (Tarne  et 
Garonne),  France.  Here,  to  avoid  breakage  probably,  the 


THE  LENAPE   STONE. 


muzzle  has  been  greatly  exaggerated  and  the  shape  of  the 
trunk  and  position  of  the  tusks  have  been  considerably 
departed  from. 

The  least  interesting  specimen  perhaps  in  the  French 
collection  is  (fig.  14)  the  very  indistinct  elephant's  head, 
minus  the  tusks,  discovered  by  the  Marquis 
de  Vibraye  in  the  cave  of  Laugerie  Basse, 
Dordogne,  France.  Another  so-called  pre 
historic  representation  of  the  mammoth, 
though  resembling  that  animal  only  in  the 
trunk-like  prolongation  of  its  muzzle,  is  (fig. 
15)  a  more  modern  bronze  specimen  from 
Siberia.  The  writer  of  the  description  in 
Laugerie  Basse.  the  « Materiaux,"  vol.  iv.,  p.  197,  prefers 
to  consider  it  a  fantastic  cat,  tiger,  or  lion. 


Fig.  14.— Head 


33 


PART   II. 


Let  us  picture  to  ourselves,  as  it  occurred  in  ancient 
times,  and  when  his  customs  and  traditions  were  as  yet 
uncontaminated  by  civilization,  one  of  the  great  religious 
feasts  of  the  Indian — a  dance,  in  honor,  perhaps,  of  the 
sun,  or  pipe  of  peace,  or  of  the  green  corn. 

A  wildly  picturesque  scene  rises  before  us,  as  we  read 
the  descriptions  of  writers  who  have  witnessed  these  cere 
monies  in  later  days ;  such  a  scene,  as — in  the  language 
of  Catlin :  "  not  all  the  years  allotted  to  mortal  man  could 
in  the  least  deface  or  obliterate  from  the  memory." 

The  tribe  is  assembled  in  the  Indian  village,  or  upon  a 
bare  hill-top,  or  perhaps  in  a  lonely  spot  in  the  forest ; 
a  great  bonfire  burns  in  their  midst,  around  which  many 
mysterious  rites  have  been  performed.  The  rain  perhaps 
was  to  be  called  down  from  heaven,  sickness  averted, 
evil  spirits  to  be  exorcised  and  driven  away,  or  the  deer  or 
moose  to  be  led  in  a  state  of  charmed  fatuity  into  the 
midst  of  the  camp.  With  wild  noises  and  gestures  the  war 
riors  have  danced  around  the  fire,  waving  corn-stalks,  or 
fiercely  brandishing  their  weapons  of  war;  the  odor  of 
burning  tobacco  or  roasting  dog's  flesh  fills  the  air,  and 
the  forest  re-echoes  with  the  cawings  of  the  crow,  the 

34 


THE  LENAPE   STONE. 


35 


"gobble"  of  the  wild  turkey,  or  the  growl  of  the  bear, 
exactly  imitated  by  the  dancers.  With  a  truthfulness 
born  of  their  intense  sympathy  for  nature,  the  moving 
figures  mimic  the  spring  of  the  panther  or  wild-cat,  the 
start  of  the  deer,  and  the  sinuous  motion  of  the  snake. 

At  length  a  figure,  half  man  half  animal,  approaches — 
the  prophet  or  medicine-man.  Nothing  can  be  more  strange 
than  his  appearance  ;  his  dress  is  hung  with  the  skins  of 


Fig.   16. 

snakes,  frogs,  and  bats,  and  adorned  with  the  beaks,  tails, 
and  toes  of  birds,  and  the  hoofs  of  the  deer  and  antelope, 
— a  diabolical  embodiment  of  animal  monstrosity. 

All  is  now  quiet,  and  from  his  medicine  bag,  made  of 
the  skin  of  the  racoon,  polecat,  or  bat,  beautifully  deco 
rated,  and  lined  with  moss  and  fine  grass,  he  produces  a 
scroll  of  birch  bark,  a  tablet  of  wood,  or  a  stone,  engraved 
with  mystic  characters.  Holding  the  tablet  in  his  hands,  as 
his  eye  falls  upon  the  carved  devices  a  low  sound,  rising  into 


36  THE  LENAPE   STONE, 

a  song  or  chant,  now  only  interrupted  by  the  crackling  of 
the  fire,  issues  from  under  the  hideous  bear's-mask  which 
hides  his  head.  Each  picture  suggests  to  his  mind  some 
event  of  the  far  past,  carefully  treasured  in  the  traditional 
lore  of  his  tribe.1  His  song,  rising  and  falling  in  strange 
inflections,  and  preserving  a  sort  of  rhythm,  now  tells  of 
the  creation  of  the  world,  a  deluge,  the  origin  of  his 
people,  and  their  primitive  struggles  with  the  forces 
of  nature ;  now  images  of  primeval  giants  and  demi 
gods  rise  before  the  minds  of  the  assembled  tribe,  his 
hearers,  of  Manabozho  the  great  hare,  of  Tarentya- 
wagon  holder  of  the  heavens,  of  Hiawatha,  and  Nana- 
bush,  and  of  "  Stonish  Giants,"  and  "  Flying  Heads"  ;  now 
he  tells  of  the  passage  of  great  waters  and  mountains,  of 
treeless  plains,  and  forests,  now  of  long  wars  with  human 
enemies,  and  of  the  final  coming  of  the  whites.  The 
squatting  figures  listen  in  motionless  silence,  as  the  song 
proceeds  through  its  many  verses,  each  the  theme  of  a 
particular  event.  At  last  it  ceases,  and  the  pictured  scroll 
or  tablet,  formula  of  its  spell,  restored  to  its  place  in  the 
medicine  pouch,  remains  hidden  from  the  eyes  of  the  tribe 
until  its  reappearance  upon  some  similar  occasion. 

Such  is  the  song-chronicle  of  the  Indian's  history ;  and 
such  songs  are  known  to  have  been  carefully  preserved 
and  sung  by  many  if  not  all  of  the  Eastern  tribes. 

Such  was  the  national  song-legend  of  the  Creeks  and 
Choctaws,  narrating  in  considerable  detail  their  tradi- 

1  See  article  on  Indian  picture-writing,  appendix,  p. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.    \V  37 

tional  origin  and  early  migration  from  the  West.  It  was 
read  to  the  English  by  the  Creek  chief,  Chekille,  at  Savan 
nah,  in  1775,  "  and  was  written  in  red  and  black  characters 
on  the  skin  of  a  young  buffalo."  This  pictured  skin,  with 
an  English  translation,  was  sent  to  London,  and  there,  in 
a  frame  in  the  Georgia  office,  at  Westminister,  was  kept 
for  many  years  as  a  curiosity  ;  it  was  finally  lost,  but  the 
translation  has  been  recently  brought  to  light  by  Dr. 
D.  G.  Brinton,  of  Philadelphia. 

Such,  too,  was  the  national  song  of  the  Cherokees,  sung 
by  them  at  their  annual  green-corn  dance.  Portions  of  it 
which  tell  of  an  early  migration  from  the  head-waters 
of  the  Monongahela,  and  of  the  great  mound  at  Grave 
Creek  which  the  Cherokees  claim  to  have  built,  are  given 
by  Haywood  in  his  "  History  of  Tennessee."  They  were 
related  to  the  author  from  memory  by  an  old  Indian 
trader  who  had  heard  the  song.  Mr.  Chamberlain,  at 
present  missionary  among  the  Cherokees,  states  that 
Guess  or  Sequoyah,  a  half-breed  Cherokee,  since  dead,  had 
invented  the  Cherokee  alphabet  of  eighty-two  letters, 
for  the  express  purpose  of  perpetuating  this  chronicle 
of  his  nation,  and  had  recorded  it  in  the  new  characters, 
but  these  interesting  manuscripts,  which  after  his 
death  were  unfortunately  mislaid,  have  thus  far  escaped 
discovery. 

The  Plackfeet,  too,  have  a  singular  historical  song  sung 
on  stated  occasions  ;  and  the  Shawnees,  now  situated  in 
the  northeast  corner  of  the  Indian  territory,  have  a 


38  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

national  legend,  described  in  one  of  the  late  Indian 
reports  as  a  "  weird  song  sung  in  a  rising  melancholy 
strain  "  ;  it  is  sung  at  one  of  their  great  annual  feasts,  but 
as  yet  the  double-barrelled  shotgun  or  the  "  handsomest 
blanket  in  Philadelphia,"  offered  by  Dr.  Brinton  for  a 
translation,  have  not  served  to  break  the  reserve  of  the 
Indians  familiar  with  the  particular  dialect  in  which  it 
is  sung,  and  who  say  that  its  revelation  would  bring 
misfortune  upon  the  tribe. 

The  historical  records  of  the  Ojibways,  says  Ka-ge-ga- 
gah-bowh,  or  George  Copway,  their  native  historian, 
were  written  in  Indian  hieroglyphics  upon  "  slate-rock, 
copper,  lead,  and  the  bark  of  birch  trees,"  and  kept 
in  three  secret  underground  depositories  near  the  head 
waters  of  Lake  Superior,  where,  being  disinterred  and 
examined  every  fifteen  years  by  a  committee  of  chiefs,  the 
dimmed  and  decaying  pictographs  were  replaced  by  fac 
similes. 

It  seems  highly  probable,  in  fact,  that  the  solemn  songs 
above,  as  well  as  most  of  the  important  historical  narra 
tives  of  the  Indian  tribes,  have  been  repeatedly  and 
variously  recorded  in  eye-catching  pictures  of  men,  ani 
mals,  and  natural  objects,  intended  to  refresh  or  jog  the 
memory  of  the  singer  or  speaker,  in  his  lengthy  recita 
tions  to  the  assembled  tribe.  And  such  a  pictured  song- 
chart,  or  reference-table  we  may  perhaps  consider  the 
carving  on  the  reverse  of  the  Lenape  stone  (fig.  16),  which, 
should  it  be,  as  we  have  supposed,  a  production  of  the 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  39 

Lenni  Lenape,  would  not  unnaturally  refer  to  the  well- 
known  historical  legend  of  that  ancient  people. 

This  tradition  of  the  Delawares,  more  interesting  and 
suggestive  probably  than  any  of  these  long-overlooked 
records  of  ancient  North  America,  has  once  at  least,  been 
recorded  by  Indians  in  pictographic  symbols ;  fortunately 
it  has  been  preserved  to  us  in  full,  and  we  can  compare 
it  with  the  carving  on  the  reverse  of  the  Lenape  stone 
(fig.  1 6),  which  we  may  suppose  suggested  to  the  mind 
of  the  Indian  singer  versed  in  the  art  of  picture-writing 
some  at  least  of  the  events  remembered  in  his  tradition. 

Two  versions  of  this  wonderful  Indian  chronicle  have 
been  rescued  from  oblivion.  The  first,  far  less  complete 
than  the  other,  was  collected  from  the  Indians  them 
selves  by  the  Moravian  missionary  Heckewelder,  about 
1800.  It  reads  as  follows:  "The  Lenni  Lenape  (accord 
ing  to  the  traditions  handed  down  to  them  by  their 
ancestors)  resided  many  hundred  years  ago  in  a  very 
distant  country,  in  the  western  part  of  the  American 
continent.  For  some  reason  which  I  do  not  find  ao 
counted  for,  they  determined  on  migrating  to  the  east 
ward,  and  accordingly  set  out  together  in  a  body.  After 
a  very  long  journey,  and  many  nights'  encampments  by 
the  way,  they  at  length  arrived  at  the  Namaesi  Sipu,  or 
River  of  Fish  (from  namaes,  a  fish,  and  sipu,  a  river)." 

One  of  the  first  figures  that  catches  our  eye  on  looking 
at  the  carvings  is  the  unmistakable  outline  of  a  fish, 
(a),  just  beneath  the  waving  lines ;  (b)  representing  water 


40  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

at  the  left  of  the  stone.  The  tradition  goes  on  to  say 
that  at  this  river  the  Delawares  "  fell  in  with  the  Mengwe 
(Iroquois,  or  five  nations),  who  had  likewise  emigrated 
from  a  distant  country,  and  had  struck  upon  this  river 
somewhat  higher  up.  Their  object  was  the  same  with 
that  of  the  Delawares;  they  were  proceeding  on  to  the 
eastward  until  they  should  find  a  country  that  pleased 
them.  The  spies  which  the  Lenape  had  sent  forward 
for  the  purpose  of  reconnoitring,  had  long  before  their 
arrival  discovered  that  the  country  east  of  the  Mississippi 
was  inhabited  by  a  very  powerful  nation,  who  had  many 
large  towns  built  on  the  great  rivers  flowing  through  their 
land.  Those  people  (as  I  was  told)  called  themselves 
Talligeu  or  Talligewi.  Colonel  John  Gibson,  however,  a 
gentleman  who  has  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  Indians, 
and  speaks  several  of  their  languages,  is  of  opinion  that 
they  were  not  called  Talligewi,  but  Alligewi,  and  it  would 
seem  that  he  is  right,  from  the  traces  of  their  name, 
which  still  remain  in  the  country,  the  Allegheny  river  and 
mountains  having  indubitably  been  named  after  them. 
The  Delawares  still  call  the  former  Alligewi  Sipu,  the 
River  of  the  Alligewi." 

"  Many  wonderful  things  are  told  of  this  famous  people. 
They  are  said  to  have  been  remarkably  tall  and  stout,  and 
there  is  a  tradition  that  there  were  giants  among  them, 
people  of  a  much  larger  size  than  the  tallest  of  the 
Lenape.  It  is  related  that  they  had  built  to  themselves 
regular  fortifications  or  intrenchments,  from  whence  they 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  41 

would  sally  out,  but  were  generally  repulsed. J  *  *  * 
When  the  Lenape  arrived  on  the  banks  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  they  sent  a  message  to  the  Alligewi  to  request 
permission  to  settle  themselves  in  their  neighborhood. 
This  was  refused  them,  but  they  obtained  leave  to  pass 
through  the  country  and  seek  a  settlement  farther  to  the 
eastward." 

This  agreement,  that  the  Lenape  should  cross  in  peace, 
might  have  been  symbolized  in  the  Muzzinabiks  (rock 
writings)  and  historical  song  records  of  any  tribe,  by  the 
figure  of  the  pipe  (c)  on  the  left  of  the  stone,  just  above 
the  water,  and  opposite  the  fish. 

"  They  accordingly  began  to  cross  the  Namaesi  Sipu," 
continues  the  account,  "  when  the  Alligewi,  seeing  that 
their  numbers  were  so  very  great,  and  in  fact  they  con 
sisted  of  many  thousands,  made  a  furious  attack  on  those 
who  had  crossed,  threatening  them  all  with  destruction  if 
they  dared  to  persist  in  coming  over  to  their  side  of  the 
river.  Fired  at  the  treachery  of  these  people,  and  the 
great  loss  of  men  they  had  sustained,  and  besides,  not 
being  prepared  for  a  conflict,  the  Lenape  consulted  on 
what  was  to  be  done — whether  to  retreat  in  the  best 
manner  they  could,  or  try  their  strength,  and  let  the 
enemy  see  they  were  not  cowards,  but  men,  and  too  high- 

1  Heckewelder  states  that  he  had  himself  seen  "  many  of  these  fortifica 
tions," — of  coprse  the  works  of  the  mound-builders.  He  mentions  in  par 
ticular  two  "  entrenchments  "  along  the  Huron  River,  and  several  large  flat 
mounds  near  them,  in  which  were  buried,  as  he  learned  from  the  Indians, 
hundreds  of  the  Alligewi,  slain  in  the  bloody  wars  which  the  narrative  pro 
ceeds  to  mention. 


42  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

minded  to  suffer  themselves  to  be  driven  off  before  they 
had  made  a  trial  of  their  strength,  and  were  convinced 
that  the  enemy  was  too  powerful  for  them.  The  Mengwe, 
who  had  hitherto  been  satisfied  with  being  spectators 
from  a  distance,  offered  to  join  them  on  condition  that, 
after  conquering  the  country,  they  should  be  entitled  to 
share  it  with  them.  Their  proposal  was  accepted,  and  the 
resolution  was  taken  by  the  two  nations  to  conquer  or  die. 
Having  thus  united  their  forces,  the  Lenape  and  Mengwe 
declared  war  against  the  Alligewi,  and  great  battles  were 
fought,  in  which  many  warriors  fell  on  both  sides." 

This  ancient  alliance  may  have  been  symbolized  to  the 
mind  of  the  Delaware  by  the  figures  of  the  hawk  (e\ 
beneath  which  is  seen  (f)  perhaps  a  wampum  belt,  and 
of  the  turtle  (d}  in  the  central  part  of  the  stone,  and  set  in 
divisions  formed  by  one  intersecting  and  four  diverging 
lines.  Devices  of  the  "  great  Thunder-bird,  whose  eyes 
were  fire  and  glance  lightning,  and  the  motion  of  whose 
wings  filled  the  air  with  thunder,"  and  of  the  "  great 
turtle,  upon  whose  back  the  mother  of  the  human  race 
had  been  received  from  heaven,"  were  common  in  the 
mystic  songs  of  the  medas  or  priests,  and  their  particular 
significations  in  these  incantations  might  have  been  almost 
endless  when  we  consider  that  to  the  initiated  Mcda  or 
Josakeed  (prophet)  the  same  sign  calls  up  quite  different 
ideas,  as  the  theme  of  the  writer  varies  from  war  to  love, 
or  from  the  chase  to  medicine,  or  prophecy.  If,  however, 
we  refer  the  subject  of  the  carving  to  history,  the  hawk 
and  turtle  may  well  be  viewed  as  the  tokens  or  heraldic 


THE  LENAPE   STONE,  43 

badges  of  the  chief  actors  in  the  story  '  (the  Lenape  arid 
Mengwe). 

As  clan  badges,  both  symbols  were  in  common  use 
among  most  of  the  Indian  tribes.  The  turtle  clan,  says 
Heckewelder,  was  the  governing  family  in  any  nation,  and 
among  the  Delawares  claimed  an  ascendency  over  the 
wolf  and  turkey  families  on  account  of  its  superior  an 
tiquity  and  relationship  to  "  the  great  turtle,  the  Atlas  of 
their  mythology,  who  bore  the  great  island — the  earth — 
upon  its  back." 

The  hawk  totem,  which  of  course  the  Delawares 
might  have  applied  to  any  people  they  chose,  irrespective 
of  its  real  emblem,  occurred  among  the  Hurons,  and  in 
both  the  Seneca  and  Cayuga  tribes  of  the  Iroquois  con 
federacy;  also  among  the  Ojibways,  Pottowatamies,  Mia- 
mis,  Abenakis,  Sacs,  and  Foxes,  and  in  many  other  tribes. 

The  account  goes  on  to  say  that  "  the  enemy  fortified 
their  large  towns  and  erected  fortifications,  especially  on 
large  rivers  and  near  lakes,  where  they  were  successively 
attacked  and  sometimes  stormed  by  the  allies.  An  en 
gagement  took  place,  in  which  hundreds  fell,  who  were 
afterwards  buried  in  holes  or  laid  together  in  heaps  and 
covered  over  with  earth.  No  quarter  was  given,  so  that 
the  Alligewi,  at  last,  finding  that  their  destruction  was  in 
evitable  if  they  persisted  in  their  obstinacy,  abandoned 
the  country  to  the  conquerors  and  fled  down  the  Missis 
sippi  River,  from  whence  they  never  returned.  The  war 

1  This  view  coincides  with  the  opinion  of  the  Indians  who  have  seen  the 
carving  since  the  above  was  written. 


44  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

which  was  carried  on  by  this  nation  lasted  many  years, 
during  which  the  Lenape  lost  a  great  number  of  their 
warriors,  while  the  Mengwe  \vould  always  hang  back  in 
the  rear,  leaving  them  to  face  the  enemy." 

In  this  description  of  a  superior  race  of  Indians,  con 
quered  after  a  most  desperate  resistance,  and  whose 
memory  still  survives  in  the  great  mountain  chain  to 
which  they  have  given  a  name,  we  find  a  key  to  the  often- 
spoken-of  mystery  of  the  mound-builders  and  their  sud 
den  disappearance. 

The  story  of  their  long  death-struggle  and  final  over 
throw  by  a  horde  of  savage  invaders,  as  here  given  in  the 
formal  style  of  Heckewelder,  seems  somewhat  colored  by 
his  well-known  partiality  for  the  Delawares.  It  is  confirmed, 
as  we  shall  see,  by  the  evidence  of  other  Indian  tradi 
tions  and  the  study  of  their  language,  which  seems  to 
show  that  this  people, — the  Alligewi  or  mound-builders — 
fleeing  down  the  Mississippi,  \vere  received  and  adopted 
by  the  Choctaws  and  Cherokees,  themselves  in  compara- 
atively  recent  times  a  mound-building  people,  and  who 
thus  have  become  in  part  their  descendants. 

A  suggestion  of  these  long  and  bloody  wars,  in  which 
the  Lenape  did  most  of  the  fighting,  may  be  seen  in  the 
figure  of  the  tomahawk  (g)  just  below  the  turtle,1  and  of 

1  The  point  projecting  behind  the  handle  in  the  figure  reminds  us  forcibly 
of  the  shape  of  the  modern  iron  tomakawk  ;  yet  that  stone  axes  of  this 
shape  were  anciently  in  use  among  the  Indians  was  proved  by  the  discovery 
of  the  "  Thorndale  Axe  "  with  a  similar  projection,  and  found  in  the  origi 
nal  wooden  handle,  now  at  the  Museum  of  Natural  History  in  New  York. 


THE   LENAPE    STONE.  45 

the  mound-builders  themselves  perhaps,  in  the  singular 
group  of  figures  above  the  water  on  the  left,  i.  e.,  the  out 
line  of  a  mountain  or  mound  on  which  a  series  of  numeri 
cal  marks  are  faintly  seen,  a  tablet  inscribed  with  ten  dots, 
two  diagonally  intersecting  lines,  and  five  parallel  marks 
or  points. 

"  In  the  end,"  continues  the  account,  "  the  conquerors 
divided  the  country  between  themselves,"  as  the  wig 
wams  (Ji  and  i)  above  each  totem  might  denote.  "  The 
Mengwe  made  choice  of  the  lands  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
great  lakes  "  and  on  their  tributary  streams,  again  sug 
gested,  perhaps,  by  the  snow-shoe  (/)  "  and  the  Lenape 
took  possession  of  the  country  to  the  south.  For  a  long 
period  of  time — some  say  many  hundred  years — the  two 
nations  resided  peacefully  in  this  country  and  increased 
very  fast.  Some  of  their  most  enterprising  huntsmen 
and  warriors  crossed  the  great  swamps,  and  falling  on 
streams  running  to  the  eastward,  followed  them  down  to 
the  great  Bay  River  (Susquehannah),  and  thence  into  the 
bay  itself,  which  we  call  Chesapeak."  As  they  pursued 
their  travels,  partly  by  land  and  partly  by  water,  in  this 
primitive  reconnaissance  of  the  great  wilderness  now  our 
homes,  journeying  sometimes  near  and  at  other  times  on 
the  "  great  salt-water  lake  "  (the  sea),  they  finally  dis 
covered  the  river  which  we  call  the  Delaware. 

"Thence  exploring  still  eastward,"  continues  the  account, 
"they  discovered  the  Scheyichbi  country,  now  named  New 
Jersey,  and  at  length  arrived  at  another  great  stream — 


46  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

that  which  we  call  the  Hudson  or  North  River.  Satisfied 
with  what  they  had  seen,  they  (or  some  of  them),  after  a 
long  absence,  returned  to  their  nation  and  reported  the 
discoveries  they  had  made.  They  described  the  country 
they  had  discovered  as  abounding  in  game  and  various 
kinds  of  fruits,  and  the  rivers  and  bays  with  fish,  tortoises, 
etc.,  together  with  abundance  of  water-fowl,  and  no  enemy 
to  be  dreaded.  They  considered  the  event  as  a  fortunate 
one  for  them,  and  concluding  this  to  be  the  country  des 
tined  for  them  by  the  Great  Spirit,  they  began  to  emigrate 
thither,  as  yet  but  in  small  bodies,  so  as  not  to  be  strait 
ened  for  want  of  provisions  by  the  way,  some  even  laying 
by  for  a  whole  year.  At  last  they  settled  on  the  four 
great  rivers  (which  we  call  Delaware,  Hudson,  Susque- 
hanna,  and  Potomac),  making  the  Delaware,  to  which 
they  gave  the  name  of  '  Lenapewihittuckj  (the  river  or 
stream  of  the  Lenape),  the  centre  of  their  possessions." 

Here  the  ancient  portion  of  the  chronicle  and  its  paral 
lelism  with  the  figures  on  the  stone  seems  to  end,  the 
remainder  being  devoted  to  long  wars  with  the  Mengwe, 
relations  with  the  whites,  and  the  more  modern  events  of 
the  history  of  the  tribe  in  the  east. 

The  other  figures  upon  the  stone — the  star  (k\  the 
calumet  (/),  the  deer  (;«),  the  curve  crossed  by  three 
oblique  lines  (n\  probably  a  war  canoe,  and  the  fish-like 
figure  (o)  at  the  end  of  the  stone — are  hardly  suggested  by 
the  narrative,  yet  may  refer  to  further  details  of  the  pas 
sage  of  the  Alleghenies,  and  the  exploration  and  settlement 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  47 

of  the  country  to  the  east,  along  the  great  rivers  and  by 
the  sea-coast. 

Far  more  interesting  than  Heckewelder's  account,  is  a 
full  version  of  the  great  national  song  of  the  Lenape  as 
they  sung  it  in  their  own  language,  with  an  English  trans 
lation,  and  with  all  the  pictographic  devices  used  to  jog 
the  memory  of  the  singer.  He  may  well  have  needed 
them,  as  the  whole  song  consists  of  two  hundred  and  two 
verses.  It  was  first  published  in  1836  by  the  eccentric 
French-American  philosopher,  Rafinesque,  in  an  extrava 
gant  work  by  him  entitled  "  The  American  Nations,"  and 
is  known  as  the  Wallum  Olum  (literally,  painted  sticks), 
or  pictographic  traditions  of  the  Lenni  Lenape.  It  con 
tains  the  Delaware  account  of  the  creation,  a  deluge,  the 
early  migrations  and  entire  history  of  the  tribe,  and  one 
hundred  and  eighty-four  mnemonic  symbols  painted  upon 
tablets  of  wood.  "It  was  obtained"  says  Rafinesque, 
"about  1822, — the  symbols  from  a  Dr.  Ward  of  Indiana, 
who  had  received  them  as  a  reward  for  a  medical  cure 
from  the  Delawares,  at  Wahapani  or  White  River,  in  1820, 
and  the  verses  from  another  individual." 

Mr.  E.  G.  Squier,  who  considered  the  internal  evidence 
furnished  by  the  songs  sufficiently  strong  to  settle  their 
authenticity,  submitted  the  manuscript  copy  of  the  songs 
and  pictographs  in  the  hand  of  Rafinesque,  who  it  appears 
had  never  owned  the  original  "  painted  sticks,"  to  George 
Copway,  the  Chippewa  chief,  who  unhesitatingly,  he  says, 
pronounced  it  authentic.  This  manuscript,  together  with 


48  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

the  pictographs,  of  which  Rafinesque  had  published  none, 
and  Squier  but  forty,  was  considered  hopelessly  lost  until 
its  fortunate  discovery  a  few  weeks  ago  by  Dr.  Brinton,  by 
whom  it  will  shortly  be  published  with  a  new  translation. 

Passing  over  its  account  of  the  creation  and  deluge,  the 
narrative  goes  on  to  describe  the  passage  by  the  Lenape 
of  a  large  body  of  water  on  the  ice  (Behring's  Straits, 
says  Rafinesque),  and  their  settlement  at  a  place  called 
Shinaki,  or  the  "  Land  of  Firs." 

After  many  generations  of  chiefs,  continues  the  fourth 
song,  during  which  time  they  were  continually  engaged  in 
wars  with  "  Snakes  "  (enemies),  they  wander  from  the  fir 
land  to  the  south  and  east,  pass  over  a  hollow  mountain 
Oligonunk  (Oregon,  according  to  Rafinesque),  and  at  last 
"  find  food  "  at "  Shililaking,  the  plains  of  the  Buffalo  Land." 
Here  they  tarry  and  build  towns  and  raise  corn  on  the 
great  meadows  of  the  Wisawana  (Yellow  River).  But 
after  many  wars  with  "  Snakes"  "  northern  enemies,"  and 
"  father  snakes,"  of  which  we  can  see  a  suggestion  in  the 
eel-like  form  (/)  on  the  stone,  they  again  resume  their 
migration  towards  the  "  sun-rising,"  and  finally  reach  the 
shores  of  the  Messussipu,1  or  Great  River,  "  which  divides 
the  land."  The  accompanying  pictograph  for  verse  49, 

1  The  word  Namaesi  Sipu  (Fish  River)  given  by  Hecke welder,  but  published 
Messussipu  (Great  River)  in  Mr.  Squier's  version  of  the  [Vallum  Olum,  ap 
pears  Namasipi  in  the  Rafinesque  version  of  1836,  and  in  the  original 
manuscript  now  in  Dr.  Brinton's  possession  it  seems  that  the  latter  word  has 
been  written  over  the  word  Messtissipu  by  the  author,  who  probably  had 
been  comparing  the  account  with  Heckewelder. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  49 

descriptive  of  the  Great  River,  quite  unlike  the  figure  upon 
the  stone,  is  here  given  from  the  original  drawing  by 
Rafinesque,  kindly  furnished  the  writer  by  Dr.  Brinton 
(fig.  17).  The  narrative,  of  which  we  give  the  English 
translation  by  Rafinesque,  omitting  the  Delaware  version, 
continues  in  the  original  as  follows : 

49.  The  Great  River  (Messussipu]  divided  the  land,  and  being 

tired,  they  tarried  there.  /// 

.  0  \  \ 

50.  Yagawanend  (Hut-maker)  was  next  sa-    fa  &))-£^ 

kima,  and  then  the  Tallegwi  were  found  possess-  ^\\ 

ing  the  east.  Fig  I7< 

51.  Followed  Chitanitis  (Strong-friend),  who  longed  for  the 
rich  east-land. 

52.  Some  went  to  the  east,  but  the  Tallegwi  killed  a  portion. 

53.  Then  all  of  one  mind  exclaimed  :  War,  war  ! 

54.  The  Talamatan  (not  of  themselves)  and  the  Nitilowan 
all  go  united  (to  the  war). 

55.  Kinehepend  (Sharp-looking)  was    their  leader,  and  they 
went  over  the  river. 

56.  And  they  took  all  that  was  there,  and  despoiled  and  slew 
the  Tallegwi. 

57.  Piniokhasuwi  (Stirring-about)  was  next  chief,  and  then 
the  Tallegwi  were  much  too  strong. 

58.  Teuchekensit  (Open-path)  followed,  and  many  towns  were 
given  up  to  him. 

59.  Paganchihilla  was  chief,  and  the  Tallegwi  all  went  south 
ward. 


50  THE  LENAPE    STONE. 

60.  Hattanwulaton  (the  Possessor)  was  sakima,  and  all  the 
people  were  pleased. 

6 1.  South  of   the  lakes   they  settled   their  council-fire,  and 
north  of  the  lakes  were  their  friends  the  Talamatan  (Hurons  ?). 

Nothing  could  be  more  interesting  to  the  lover  of 
American  archaeology  than  a  study  of  this  song — with  the 
single  exception  perhaps  of  the  Lenape  stone,  the  most  re 
markable  Indian  document  in  existence.  The  latter  part 
of  the  story  here  given,  is  even  less  suggestive  than 
the  preceding  portions,  which  we  have  been  obliged  to 
omit. 

The  generations  of  chiefs,  which  it  recites  in  order, 
seem  to  include  thousands  of  years,  and  as  we  read  its 
account  of  a  creation  and  a  deluge;  of  the  passage  of  a 
great  water  upon  the  ice,  and  an  arrival  at  a  "  Land  of 
Firs,"  we  almost  pardon  the  extravagant  speculations  of 
Rafmesque,  to  which  it  gave  rise. 

Both  versions  of  the  account  tell  the  same  story,  yet 
there  is  one  striking  difference  between  them.  In  the 
Heckewelder  version  the  allies  of  the  Lenape  are  spoken 
of  as  "  Mengwi  "  (Iroquois,  Mingoes)  ;  in  the  t  Wallum 
Olum  as  "  Talamatan  "  (Hurons,  called  Delamattenos  by 
the  Delawares) ;  but  the  variance  is  reconciled  when  we  con 
sider  that  in  ancient  times,  as  their  language  and  traditions 
prove,-  the  Hurons  and  Iroquois  were  one  closely  allied 
nation,  constituting  one  family  or  linguistic  stock. 

We    may   doubt,    however,    whether    the    great    river 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  51 

crossed  in  the  migration — "  Namacsi  Sipu  "  (Fish  River) 
in  Hecke welder,  and  "  Mcssussipu  "  in  the  Wallum  Olum— 
referred  to  the  Mississippi. 

The  Huron-Iroquois  will  tell  us,  when  questioned,  that 
at  an  early  period,  and  while  the  families  were  still  united, 
his  people,  coming  originally  from  the  northeast  of  Can 
ada,  migrated  to  the  southward,  and  had  not  come  from 
the  west  across  the  Mississippi  ;  he  too  has  traditions  of 
crossing  a  river  and  attacking  a  race  of  mound-builders, 
but  the  river  of  his  account  was  crossed  to  the  southward, 
and  lay  on  the  north  of  the  mound-builders'  country. 
The  Iroquois  tradition  is  given  in  a  famous  passage,  sup 
posed  to  refer  to  the  mound-builders,  in  the  account  of 
David  Cusic,  a  native  Iroquois,  of  the  Tuscarora  clan, 
who  wrote  a  history  of  his  tribe.  We  give  it  here  in  the 
original,  uncorrected  form,  as  published  by  Schoolcraft. 

Referring  to  an  early  age  of  monsters,  demi-gods,  giants, 
and  horned  serpents,  when  the  Hurons  and  Iroquois  were 
as  yet  but  one  people,  and  they  and  other  tribes,  "  the 
northern  nations,"  possessed  the  banks  of  the  great  lakes, 
"  where  there  were  plenty  of  beavers,"  but  '*  where  the 
hunters  were  often  opposed  by  the  big  Snakes"  Cusic  goes 
on  to  say  that  "on  one  occasion  the -northern  nations 
formed  a  confederacy,  and  seated  a  great  council-fire  on 
the  river  St.  Lawrence.  Perhaps  about  2,200  years  be 
fore  the  Columbus  discovered  the  America,  the  northern 
nations  appointed  a  prince,  and  immediately  repaired  to 
the  south  and  visited  the  Great  Emperor,  who  resided  at 


52  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

the  Golden  City,  a  capital  of  the  vast  Empire.  After  a 
time  the  Emperor  built  many  forts  throughout  his  do 
minions,  and  almost  penetrated  the  Lake  Erie.  This 
produced  an  excitement ;  the  people  on  the  north  felt 
that  they  would  soon  be  deprived  of  the  country  on  the 
south  side  of  the  great  lakes.  They  determined  to  defend 
their  country  against  any  infringement  of  foreign  people; 
long,  bloody  wars  ensued,  which  lasted  about  one  hun 
dred  years.  The  people  of  the  north  were  too  skilful  in 
the  use  of  bows  and  arrows,  and  could  endure  hardships 
which  proved  fatal  to  a  foreign  people ;  at  last  the  north 
ern  nations  gained  the  conquest,  and  all  the  towns  and 
forts  were  totally  destroyed,  and  left  them  in  the  heap  of 
ruins." 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  upper  St.  Lawrence  or 
Detroit  River,  streams  noticed  by  the  Indians  as  abound 
ing  in  fish,  was  the  "  Fish  River  "  of  the  Heckewelder 
tradition.  Here,  as  we  have  seen  according  to  informa 
tion  collected  from  the  Lenni  Lenape,  desperate  battles 
had  taken  place  with  the  Allegwi,  hundreds  of  whom 
were  slain  and  buried  under  mounds  in  that  vicinity.1 

Other  considerations,  too,  induce  us  to  suppose  that 
the  Lenape  and  Huron-Iroquois  invasion  came  from  the 
northward  and  not  from  the  west.  If  we  study  the  shape 
and  position  of  the  mounds  themselves  along  the  southern 
shore  of  the  great  lakes,  we  find  that  they  present  often  the 
appearance  of  fortifications  erected  against  the  advance 

1  See  article  on  "Indian  Migrations"  by  Horatio  Hale,  American  Anti 
quarian,  Jan.— April,  1883. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.    /  53 

of  an  enemy  from  the  north,  and  suddenly  abandoned 
after  a  long  struggle.  Also  the  scattered  implements  and 
half-removed  blocks  of  ore  found  in  the  prehistoric 
copper  mines  on  the  south  shore  of  Lake  Superior, 
seemed  to  indicate  their  hasty  desertion  by  the  miners 
upon  the  sudden  inroad  of  an  enemy  from  that  direction. 
Again,  the  works  of  the  mound-builders,  though  at 
some  points  insignificant  and  hardly  perceptible,  extend 
considerably  west  of  the  Mississippi,  and  probably  would 
have  been  encountered  by  the  advancing  Lenape  before 
reaching  that  river,  and  had  it  been  the  stream  meant  it 
would  not  have  been  spoken  of  as  the  boundary  of  the 
mound-builders'  empire.1 

'  On  the  other  hand,  how  shall  we  account  for  the  occurrence  of  the  word 
Messusipu  in  the  Wallum  Olum,  or,  more  exactly,  in  the  Rafinesque  copy  of 
it — the  only  version  we  possess  ? 

Messusipu  is  derived,  says  Squier,  from  the  Algonkin  words  Messu, 
Messi,  or  Michi  (great),  and  Sipu  (river). 

The  name  Mississippi  is  of  Algonkin  origin,  and  has  the  same  etymology, 
— it  means  "great  river."  Among  the  Algonkin  tribes  living  to  the  north 
and  along  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Mississippi,  the  Sauks  called  it  Mecha- 
sapo,  the  Menomonees  Mecha-sepiia,  the  Kicapoos  Meche-sepe,  the  Chippe- 
ways  Meze-zebe,  and  the  Ottawas  Missis-sepi  ;  Mecha,  Meche,  Meze,  Missis, 
meaning  "great,"  and  sapo,  sepua,  sepe,  zebe,  and  sepi,  "  river."  (Wiscon 
sin  Hist.  Col.,  ix.,  301.) 

The  Lenape  word  Messusipu  must  therefore  refer  to  the  Mississippi.  Yet 
we  may  suppose  that  Rafinesque  had  written  the  word  by  mistake  in  his 
copy  of  the  Wallum  Olum,  a  supposition  which  gains  strength  from  the  fact 
that  Messusipu  plainly  appears  in  his  manuscript  to  have  been  changed  to 
Namasipi.  Had  he  been  comparing  his  copy  with  the  original  ' '  painted 
sticks  "  or  some  other  Indian  authority  not  mentioned  ?  or  did  he  merely 
borrow  the  word  Namasipi  from  Heckewelder?  Again  we  may  suppose  the 
word  Messusipu  to  have  been  an  indefinite  term  applied  by  the  Lenape  to 
more  than  one  of  the  great  streams  crossed  by  them  in  their  migrations. 


54  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

The  Wallum  Olum,  however,  with  its  hieroglyphics,  does 
not  end  with  the  brief  extract  given.  Song  five,  consisting 
of  fifty-eight  verses,  recounts  the  details  of  the  occupation 
by  the  conquerors  of  the  Ohio  valley,  and  long  wars  with 
enemies  denominated  "  Father  Snakes"  "  Stone  Snakes"  and 
"North  Snakes"  whose  pictograph  in  the  original  manu 
script  is  here  given  (fig.  1  8).  They  pass  the  Alleghenies,  and 
exploring  the  Chesapeake  Bay  and  great 


/£- 


o  rivers  of  "  the  large  and  long  east  land," 
/\  finally  establish  themselves  on  the  Dela- 
'  » 


ware,  making  "  Maskckitong"  the  rapids  at 
Trenton,  the  centre  of  their  dominions. 
We  have  now  reached  the  time  of  the  coming  of  the 
whites,  and  the  last  verses  of  the  song  speak  in  brief 
simplicity  of  a  people  who  came  from  somewhere,  "  and 
that  which  was  white  "  (ships)  "  coming  from  the  East 
Sea." 

There  is  still  another  song  —  the  sixth-  —  continuing  the 
chronicle  and  recounting  the  melancholy  story  of  the 
Lenape's  contact  with  the  whites,  and  final  westward 
journey  to  Ohio,  where  the  records  were  obtained.  A  nar 
rative  of  sufferings  and  hard  wrongs,  whose  recital  by  the 
Indian  had  caused  Heckewelder,  as  he  said,  "  to  feel 
ashamed  that  he  was  a  white  man." 

The  symbols  appended  to  the  songs,  and  among  which 
the  forms  of  the  rectangle  and  circle  frequently  occur,  end 
with  the  fifth  song  ;  they  appear  very  arbitrary,  and  it  is 
certainly  disappointing  to  find  that  they  bear  no  resem- 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  55 

blance  to  the  carvings  upon  the  Lenape  stone,  likewise,  as 
we  have  supposed,  productions  of  the  Lenni  Lenape  and 
dealing  with  the  same  subject.  Yet  we  need  not  be  sur 
prised  when  we  consider  the  varied  and  often  arbitrary 
methods  of  Indian  picture-writing. 

In  comparing  the  carvings  on  the  reverse  of  the  Lenape 
stone  with  the  Lenape  and  Huron-Iroquois  traditions  of 
their  early  migration  and  struggle  with  the  mound- 
builders,  we  have  spoken  only  of  probabilities.  Possibly 
these  carvings  may  refer  to  the  incantations  of  the 
prophets  and  doctors,  to  songs  for  "  medicine  hunting," 
or  charms  against  evil  spirits,  and  not  to  the  history  of 
the  tribe,  as  recounted  in  the  Wallum  Olum  and  the 
narratives  of  Heckewelder  and  Cusic.  Possibly,  too,  the 
modern  Indians  who  have  seen  the  carvings  may  have 
entirely  mistaken  their  subject,  as  similar  signs  are  used 
in  quite  different  kinds  of  their  picture-writing.  Yet  if 
we  view  the  chief  feature  of  the  Lenape  stone — the 
mammoth  picture — as  an  example  of  muzzinabik  or  his 
torical  picture-writing,  an  attempt  to  explain  the  carvings 
on  the  reverse  of  the  stone  as  specimens  of  the  same 
class  of  writings  does  not  seem  extravagant.  Viewed  in 
the  light  of  these  legends,  and  compared  with  the  frag 
ments  of  ancient  Indian  history  which  chance  has  pre 
served  to  us,  the  carvings  upon  the  Lenape  stone  vividly 
impress  upon  our  minds  the  reality  of  that  dark  period  of 
our  continent's  past,  antecedent  to  the  first  coming  of  the 
white  man,  separated  from  us  by  but  a  few  centuries,  yet 


56  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

where  the  boundary  line  between  history  and  geology 
becomes  indistinct,  when  for  hundreds,  perhaps  thousands, 
of  years  the  Indian  lived  alone  on  the  "  great  island," 
and  while  those  deep-rooted  peculiarities  of  his  character, 
which  civilization  has  failed  to  eradicate,  were  slowly 
growing  out  of  his  wilderness  life. 

The  ancient  presence  of  the  Lenape  is  often  remem 
bered  in  the  heart  of  his  former  dominions.  Along  the 
shores  of  the  beautiful  river,  whose  transatlantic  name, 
applied  also  to  his  tribe,  he  resented,  the  arrow-head  and 
tomahawk,  everywhere  found  upon  sites  of  ancient 
camps  and  fishing-grounds,  tell  of  the  long  centuries  of  his 
possession.  His  memory  lingers  in  the  name  and  poetry 
of  our  Indian  summer ;  and  in  that  most  delightful  of 
autumnal  seasons,  when  a  warm  wind  blowing  from  the 
abode  of  the  Great  Spirit  stirs  the  fields  of  ripened  maize, 
we  may  see,  where  first  the  Indian's  fancy  must  have  seen 
it,  a  suggestion  of  his  head-dress  of  feathers  in  the  grace 
ful  motion  of  the  corn-stalks.  He  is  immortalized  in 
richly  melodious  names  of  rivers,  streams,  and  mountains, 
and  his  memory  is  forever  recalled  in  the  yearly  growth 
of  that  noblest  of  American  plants,  the  Indian  corn. 

In  concluding  here  our  view  of  the  less  distinct  though 
not  improbable  reference  of  the  carvings  on  the  reverse  of 
the  Lenape  stone  to  the  ancient  historical  traditions  of 
the  Delawares,  a  brief  review  of  the  subject  of  the  fore 
going  pages  may  not  be  out  of  place. 

We    have    seen    that   the    stone  was   found   at   a   spot 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  57 

situated  in  the  ancient  territory  of  the  Delawares,  and 
where  many  articles  of  undoubted  Indian  workmanship 
have  been  found, — among  them  two  carved  stones,1 — that 
similar  aboriginal  carvings  of  the  hairy  mammoth  have 
been  discovered  in  Europe,  and  that  a  race  of  men,  relics 
of  whom  have  been  found  on  the  Delaware  river  and  in 
California,  and  who  may  or  may  not  have  been  the  ances 
tors  of  the  modern  Indian,  have  existed  in  North  America 
at  the  time  of  the  mammoth.  Moreover,  that  as  yet 
nothing  is  definitely  known  as  to  the  antiquity  of  the 
Indians'  occupancy  of  our  continent,  and  that  there  is  no 
geological  evidence  to  prove  that  the  mammoth  did  not 
survive  in  America  to  a  comparatively  recent  period.  We 
have  seen  further  that  the  Indians  in  several  of  their  tradi 
tions  attribute  the  mammoth  bones  seen  by  them  on  the 
Ohio  to  a  great  monster  who  was  destroyed  by  lightning, 
and  that  there  is  a  similarity  too  strong  to  be  accidental 
between  the  Lenape  tradition  of  the  great  Buffalo  and 
the  carving  on  the  stone  ;  finally,  we  may  see  perhaps 
a  reference  in  the  carvings  on  the  reverse  of  the  stone 
to  the  early  Delaware  traditions  of  their  migration  to 
the  eastward  and  wars  with  the  mound-builders,  as  de 
tailed  in  Heckewelder's  account,  the  "  Wallum  Olum," 
and  David  Cusic's  history. 

1  See  Appendix. 


APPENDIX. 


50 


APPENDIX. 


STATEMENT   OF   BERNARD   Z.    HANSELL. 

ON  the  writer's  second  visit  to  Hansell,  the  latter  was 
at  his  father's  farm.  He  stated  that  the  photographs 
shown  him  were  representations  of  the  stone,  and  said 
that  he  considered  that  he  had  been  cheated.  He  had 
had  no  idea  of  the  stone's  value,  and  declared  that  it 
was  a  "  mean  trick,"  the  purchase  of  all  his  relics — the 
stone  included — for  $2.50.  When  it  was  explained  to 
him  that  Mr.  Paxon,  the  purchaser,  had  been  as  ignorant 
as  he  in  the  matter  at  the  time,  he  seemed  satisfied. 

On  the  third  visit,  February  loth,  Hansell  said : 

I  am  sure  that  I  found  the  large  piece  first,  in  the  spring 
of  1872  (the  year  after  my  father  bought  the  place — 1871), 
and  while  "  ploughing  for  oats "  in  the  "  corner "  field,  and 
near  the  corner  where  the  by-road  joins  the  Durham  road — 
the  roots  of  the  last  year's  corn  crop  had  shortly  before  been 
harrowed  out.  It  was  in  April.  When  I  saw  it,  it  was  lying 
on  the  top  of  the  ground,  a  little  to  one  side  of  the  furrow.  I 
stopped  and  picked  it  up  ;  it  seemed  like  "  something  differ 
ent  "  from  what  I  had  ever  found  before.  It  was  dirty — dirt 
stuck  to  the  stone  ;  by  rubbing,  I  could  see  lines — "  queer 
marks  "  over  it.  (When  I  afterward  saw  it  at  Mr.  Paxon's,  the 
latter  had  "cleaned  it.") 

61 


62  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

I  am  certain  I  saw  an  animal  like  an  elephant  on  it  before 
Mr.  Paxon  saw  the  stone.  I  carried  it  around  a  day  or  two  in 
my  pocket,  and  then  put  it  in  a  box  along  with  the  other 
things  ;  and  whatever  arrow-heads  and  other  relics  I  found,  I 
would  put  into  the  same  box.  The  same  day,  I  planted  a  corn 
stalk  into  the  ground  to  mark  the  place — a  shower  might  wash 
out  something  else,  I  thought.  I  left  the  corn-stalk  until  the 
oats  harvest,  and  then  threw  a  stone  there,  but  I  soon  came  to 
know  the  place  by  heart.  The  box  with  the  relics  I  kept 
locked  up  in  my  trunk,  and  I  took  care  to  keep  it  locked, — 
there  were  so  many  boys  about.  In  the  meantime,  I  was 
married.  I  showed  the  relics  and  stone  to  my  wife,  but  she 
would  not  remember  the  elephant  on  the  stone.  I  might 
have  showed  it  to  father,  or  might  not,  I  am  not  sure.  He 
would  not  remember.  In  the  same  field,  I  and  others  on  the 
place  found  arrow-heads,  coins  (English  and  American  pen 
nies),  and  a  part  of  a  tomahawk  or  banner  stone  (sold  to  Mr. 
Paxon).  I  did  not  find  any  thing  else  in  that  field,  but  "  gorget 
stones  "  without  inscriptions,  and  round  stone  balls,  with  in 
cisions  on  sides,  were  found  near  by. 

In  the  spring  of  1881,  Mr.  Paxon  asked  me  whether  I  had 
any  Indian  relics.  I  said  that  I  had.  I  told  him  I  would  be 
at  home  on  Sunday,  and  he  came  the  next  Sunday  afternoon 
— about  May  or  June,  as  nearly  as  I  can  recollect, — 1881.  I 
brought  out  the  box  of  relics,  and  told  him  that  I  would  sell 
him  the  perfect  arrow-heads  for  ten  cents,  and  the  broken  ones 
for  five  cents  apiece.  I  had  a  broken  tomahawk  and  a  piece 
of  another,  and  I  laid  them  and  the  stone  aside,  and  said  I 
thought  I  would  keep  them.  But  he  did  not  take  much  inter 
est  in  the  rest,  and  said  he  wanted  all  the  relics.  He  did  not 
look  much  at  the  arrow-heads,  but  he  picked  up  the  stone  and 
turned  it  around,  and  wet  his  thumb  and  rubbed  it.  He  did 
not  say  any  thing  about  the  stone.  I  did  not  much  want  to 
sell  him  the  stone,  for  I  never  saw  any  thing  like  it  before. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  63 

But  he  said  he  would  take  all  the  relics  or  none  for  $2.50.  So 
I  let  him  have  them.  At  the  same  time  he  asked  me  whether 
I  had  not  the  other  piece  ;  perhaps  I  had,  he  said,  and  did  not 
know  it.  I  told  him  that  I  had  not. 

About  a  month  after  that  time,  he  came  by  on  foot  and 
asked  me  whether  I  had  found  any  thing  more  ?  I  said  that  I 
had  not.  "  If  you  do,"  he  said,  "  keep  it  and  give  me  the  first 
chance." 

I  always  had  the  other  piece  in  my  mind,  and  when 
I  went  in  the  field  I  used  to  look  for  it.  I  would  walk 
around  the  spot  in  a  circle,  for  I  thought  some  one  might 
have  picked  it  up  and  then  thrown  it  away  again. 

After  we  had  cut  the  corn  in  the  field,  and  as  I  went  in  to 
husk,  I  happened  to  pass  near  the  place — I  always  remember 
the  place, — I  was  thinking  of  the  other  piece,  and  was  hardly 
in  the  field  before  I  picked  it  up.  I  noticed  the  marks  and  the 
shape,  and  saw  at  once  that  it  was  the  missing  piece.  It  had 
notches  around  the  edges.  I  put  it  in  my  pocket  and  laid  it  in 
the  drawer.  My  wife  never  saw  it.  It  was  the  little  piece.  I 
was  married  then  and  in  my  own  house,  and  there  was  nobody 
about  the  house,  so  I  did  not  lock  it  up. 

This  was  in  the  fall — after  the  exhibition  at  Doylestown 
(October),  in  1881.  When  I  went  down  to  Mr.  Faxon's  father's, 
Squire  Faxon's,  to  pay  my  tax,  on  the  gth  of  November,  1881, 
I  took  this  piece  along.  Young  Mr.  Faxon  was  not  at  home, 
but  I  waited  till  he  came  back.  I  said  I  had  something 
"  pretty  nice  "  for  him,  and  showed  him  the  missing  piece.  He 
thought  when  he  saw  it  that  I  would  make  him  pay  pretty 
dear  for  it,  but  I  told  him  that  I  would  give  it  to  him.  I  had 
not  rubbed  or  cleaned  it.  He  put  the  pieces  together  and 
said  "  that  is  the  missing  piece."  He  took  me  up  to  his 
room  and  gave  me  some  minerals.  I  advised  him  to  glue  the 
pieces  together  with  "  hickory  cement."  I  had  some  of  this 
cement  at  home,  and  offered  to  give  it  to  him. 


64  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

The  next  spring  I  saw  the  stone  again,  all  washed  and 
cleaned.  It  did  not  look  altered — only  clean  and  rubbed  off. 
I  saw  it  again  this  February  (1884),  when  you  and  Mr.  Paxon 
came  to  see  me,  and  I  saw  no  change  in  it. 

I  never  sold  a  relic  before  I  sold  those  to  Harry  Paxon,  and 
never  knew  any  one  from  Philadelphia  that  took  any  interest 
in  Indian  relics.  I  used  to  give  things  away  to  relatives  of 
mine,  often  boys — my  cousins,  when  they  came  up  from  town. 
They  had  never  seen  any  thing  like  an  arrow-head  before,  l 
never  gave  a  stone  to  any  one  but  a  relative.  William  Han- 
sell,  my  brother,  a  little  boy,  saw  me  pick  up  the  small  piece 
of  the  Lenape  Stone.  I  never  heard  of  any  one  in  this  neigh 
borhood  interested  in  Indian  relics  before  Mr.  Paxon. 

The  first  things  that  I  remember  giving  away  were  a  couple 
of  black  arrow-heads  that  I  gave  to  James  Aikens,  in  1871. 
He  lives  in  Germantown.  This  was  before  I  found  the  stone. 
[Signed]  BERNARD  Z.  HANSELL. 

Sworn  to  before 
BENJAMIN  S.  RICH,  J.  P.,  Nov.  6,  1884. 

The  writer  questioned  Hansell's  wife.  She  remembered 
his  having  shown  her  the  relics  before  they  were  sold  to 
Mr.  Paxon,  but  had  paid  no  attention  to  "  these  little  stones 
he  picks  up,"  and  did  not  remember  whether  "  this  stone 
you  are  talking  about "  was  among  them  or  not.  The 
writer  also  questioned  Hansell's  father  and  mother. 
Neither  had  seen  the  stone.  The  boy,  William  Hansell, 
brother  of  Bernard,  said  that  he  had  seen  the  little  piece 
when  Bernard  picked  it  up,  but  had  never  seen  the  large 
piece  of  the  stone.  The  piece  he  had  seen  was  covered 
with  dirt  and  mud,  and  had  "  half  a  hole  "  in  it.  Bernard 
had  told  him  that  he  was  going  to  give  it  to  Mr.  Paxon. 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  6$ 

STATEMENT  OF   MR.    HENRY   D.    FAXON. 

I  remember  Hansell  telling  me  of  his  Indian  relics  at  my 
father's  office.  I  went  to  see  him  on  a  Sunday,  and  he  showed 
me,  in  the  wood-shed,  a  tobacco-box  half  full  of  relics,  among 
them  the  large  piece  of  the  Lenape  Stone.  At  the  time  I  never 
realized  what  it  was.  It  was  covered  with  dirt,  as  were  all  the 
relics.  There  must  have  been  about  two  hundred  arrow-heads, 
broken  and  perfect,  besides  a  broken  axe  and  fragments  of  a 
banner  stone,  and  one  or  two  large  spears  and  so-called 
"  gigs."  The  stone  struck  me  as  an  extraordinary  Indian 
relic.  Buying  the  relics,  I  brought  them  home  that  Sun 
day  afternoon,  and  at  once  showed  them  to  my  father.  He 
saw  the  elephant.  Whether  I  had  noticed  it  before  I  cannot 
remember.  Mr.  John  S.  Ash  saw  this  first  piece — the  large 
piece — before  Capt.  Bailey  saw  it.  I  showed  it  to  any  and 
everybody  that  came  to  my  father's  office,  but  can  only  be  sure 
now  of  Mr.  Ash.  Capt.  Bailey  saw  it  and  borrowed  it  while  pre 
paring  his  article.  I  had  it  at  the  Bucks  County  Bi-Centennial 
Exhibition,  August  31,  September  i  and  2,  1882.  I  did  not 
particularly  value  the  stone  until  I  read  Capt.  Bailey's  article. 
I  cleaned  out  the  soil  which  clung  to  the  stone  with  a  tooth 
brush,  and  may  also  have  used  a  stick — but  I  think  not  a  nail. 
[Signed]  HENRY  D.  PAXON. 

Sworn  to  before 
ELIAS  EASTBURN,  J.  P.,  Nov.  8,  1884. 

STATEMENT  OF  MR.  ALBERT  PAXON. 

Young  Hansell  and  his  father  were  at  my  house  on  business 
(I  am  Justice  of  the  Peace).  They  had  rented  a  house.  I  think 
it  was  on  a  Saturday  in  '80  or  '81,  in  the  summer.  The  next 
day  my  son  went  to  Hansell's  and  brought  back  a  large  num 
ber  of  Indian  relics.  He  had  invested  two  or  three  dollars  in 


66  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

them.  In  the  lot  was  one  of  the  pieces  of  the  stone.  I  remember 
saying  that  it  was  a  pity  he  had  not  the  other  half.  The  lines 
were  not  cleaned  out.  I  recollect  the  elephant.  He  emptied 
the  relics  on  the  floor  of  the  piazza.  It  was  early  summer,  and 
warm  weather — about  May  or  June, — and  I  think  on  Sunday.  I 
am  certain  of  having  seen  the  elephant  the  first  day  he  got  the 
stone.  Bernard  Hansell,  I  find  in  my  book,  paid  his  tax  No 
vember  8,  '81,  but  I  am  not  positive  in  these  dates  to  a  day. 
There  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  to  my  knowledge,  any  strange 
or  suspicious  person  of  an  "  archaeological  turn  "  in  this  neigh 
borhood,  and  there  is  no  one  here  clever  enough  to  have  made 
the  stone.  [Signed]  ALBERT  S.  FAXON. 

Affirmed  before 
JAMES  GILKYSON,  J.  P.,  Nov.  8,  1884. 

STATEMENT    OF   MR.   JOHN   S.   ASH,    OF   GREENVILLE, 
NOVEMBER    8,    1884. 

At  the  time  of  my  first  seeing  the  Lenape  Stone,  I  observed 
an  elephant  or  mammoth  carved  upon  the  fragment.  I  cannot 
now  fix  the  date  of  my  first  seeing  this  piece.  Probably  it  was 
some  three  years  since,  though  it  may  not  be  two  and  may  be 
four.  I  think  it  was  before  the  Bucks  County  Bi-Centennial 
Exhibition.  [Signed]  JOHN  S.  ASH. 

Affirmed  before 
ELIAS  EASTBURN,  J.  P.,  Nov.  8,  1884. 

STATEMENT   OF   CAPT.   J.    S.   BAILEY. 

I  saw  the  stone  first,  I  think,  in  November,  in  the  fall  of  1881, 
and  a  few  days  after  Mr.  Paxon  had  obtained  the  second  piece. 
He  had  said  to  me  that  he  had  a  curious  stone  which  he 
wished  to  show  me.  I  remember  his  mentioning  the  figure  of  a 
turtle,  a  snake,  and  an  elephant  carved  on  the  stone,  although 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  6/ 

he  did  not  first  mention  the  elephant  figure  or  show  that  he 
appreciated  the  mammoth.  It  was  not  till  he  had  read  my 
article  in  the  county  newspaper  that  he  came  to  know  the 
value  of  the  carving.  He  was  only  eighteen  or  nineteen  then, 
and  I  believe  would  have  sold  the  stone  for  a  comparatively 
trifling  sum.  As  soon  as  I  took  the  stone  home,  after  Mr. 
Paxon  had  lent  it  to  me,  all  my  family  saw  it.  Judge  Paxon, 
his  uncle,  did  not  realize  its  archaeological  importance,  neither 
did  Mr.  Paxon,  the  owner's  father.  I  showed  it  to  Judge 
Paxon  before  I  wrote  the  article.  The  first  time  Mr.  Harry 
Paxon  showed  me  the  stone  I  remember  his  saying  that  "  he 
could  sell  it  for  five  dollars."  He  wanted  me  to  glue  or 
cement  the  pieces  together,  but  I  discountenanced  the  plan. 
I  think  he  must  have  scraped  out  the  original  soil  clinging  to 
it  with  a  nail  or  some  sharp  instrument,  and  I  told  him  that 
he  had  cleaned  the  lines  too  much  and  that  the  stone 
had  lost  the  look  of  age.  The  next  time  I  saw  it  he  had 
filled  the  lines  with  clay,  and  this  I  advised  him  to  remove, 
as  it  did  not  resemble  the  soil  of  the  original  field.  So 
the  next  time  I  saw  it  he  had  cleaned  it  again.  I  took  the 
stone  to  the  January  or  April  meeting  of  the  Bucks  County 
Historical  Society,  1882,  and  showed  it  to  all  the  members  pres 
ent.  I  showed  it  to  Gen.  Davis,  who  advised  me  in  connec 
tion  with  it  to  prepare  an  article  on  the  Indian  relics  found 
in  Bucks  County,  to  be  read  before  the  July  meeting  at  Penn's 
Manor.  A  few  days  after  that  I  returned  the  stone  to  Mr. 
Paxon.  Somewhere  in  June  or  July  (1882)  I  borrowed  it 
again,  and  kept  it  until  two  or  three  weeks  after  the  meeting  at 
Pennsbury.  This  meeting  was  on  the  third  Tuesday  in  July, 
1882.  Mr.  Paxon  did  not  go  to  the  meeting,  but  after  reading 
my  article  in  the  paper  he  set  a  higher  value  on  his  relic  and 
wished  me  to  return  it.  I  do  not  recollect  seeing  either  part 
separately.  The  two  pieces  were  together  when  I  first  saw  it. 
I  think  Hansell  told  me  that  the  large  part  had  been  found 


68  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

first.  Very  many  people  saw  the  stone  at  my  lecture  at  Penn's 
Manor.  I  had  a  large  diagram  of  the  inscription,  several  feet 
long.  Two  hundred  people  must  have  seen  it.  There  was 
an  article  in  the  Bucks  County  Intelligencer  about  it,  and  it 
was  at  the  Bi-Centennial  and  there  seen  by  everybody. 

[Signed]  JOHN  S.  BAILEY. 

Affirmed  to  before 
ELIAS  EASTBURN,  J.  P.,  Nov.  8,  1884. 

Letter  from  Dr.  D.  G.  Brinton,  Professor  of  Archaeol 
ogy  and  Ethnology  in  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences, 
Philadelphia. 

To  the  Editor  of  the  Bucks  County  "Intelligencer  "  : 

The  discussion  in  your  paper  about  the  so-called  "  Lenape 
Stone,"  in  which  my  name  has  incidentally  been  introduced, 
leads  me  to  address  you  a  few  lines  on  some  archaeological 
points,  especially  on  the  methods  of  distinguishing  genuine 
from  fabricated  specimens.  I  shall  only  refer  to  the  Lenape 
Stone  by  way  of  illustration.  It  was  first  shown  to  me  by 
Professor  Lewis,  and  after  a  careful  inspection  I  pronounced 
it  a  modern  piece  of  work,  which  opinion  has  been  substan 
tiated  by  later  observers.  My  opinion  was  based,  first,  on  the 
design,  and  secondly,  on  the  execution.  It  may  be  laid  down 
as  a  rule,  holding  good  in  all  aboriginal  designs  of  the  Eastern 
United  States,  that  no  lines  indicating  either  shading  or 
rounding  are  found  on  figures  of  pure  native  origin.  Every 
line  was  significant,  and  nothing  was  done  for  affect.  Group 
ing  was  also  unknown,  and  any  such  triple  arrangement  as  the 
brute,  the  human,  and  the  divine  groups,  standing  in  immedi 
ate  relation  to  each  other  and  forming  parts  of  a  picture,  as 
appears  on  the  Lenape  Stone,  was  as  far  above  aboriginal 
aesthetic  conceptions  as  the  Sistine  Madonna  would  be  above 
the  execution  of  a  sign-painter.  Certain  artistic  details,  as  the 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  69 

lightnings  shooting  in  various  directions  from  a  central  point 
(as  from  the  hand  of  Jove),  were  also  unknown  to  the  art 
notions  of  the  red  race.  The  treatment  of  the  sun  as  a  face, 
with  rays  shooting  from  it,  I  also  consider  foreign  to  the 
pictography  of  the  Delaware  Indians,  nor  have  I  yet  seen  any 
specimens  proved  to  be  of  their  manufacture  that  present  it. 
It  is  found,  indeed,  in  Chippeway  pictography,  but  there  only 
in  late  examples. 

The  execution  of  such  imitations  also  usually  betrays  their 
origin.  The  lines  on  the  Lenape  Stone  are  obviously  cut  with 
a  metal  instrument,  making  clean  incisions,  deepest  in  the 
centre  and  tapering  to  points — quite  different  from  the  scratch 
of  a  flint  point.  Shrewder  fabricators  than  the  unknown 
author  of  this  one  make  use  of  flint  points.  Some  of  the 
Western  "  tablets  "  have  been  so  inscribed.  They  may  thus 
conceal  their  tools,  but  there  are  other  resources  for  the 
archaeologist.  The  surface  of  all  stones  undergoes  a  certain 
chemical  change  on  exposure  to  the  air,  which  is  called  by  the 
French  term  patine.  In  many  varieties,  as  flints,  jasper,  and 
hard  shales,  this  affords  a  decisive  means  of  discriminating  a 
modern  from  an  ancient  inscription  or  arrow-head.  It  requires 
the  use  of  the  microscope  and  some  practice,  but  with  these 
most  of  such  impostures  can  be  detected.  This  does  not 
exhaust  the  resources  at  the  command  of  the  antiquary  to  cir 
cumvent  those  who  would  practise  on  his  love  for  relics  of  the 
past.  But  I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  opinions  on  relics 
need  neither  be  vague  nor  prejudiced.  It  is  most  desirable 
that  the  citizens  of  our  Commonwealth  should  take  an  earnest 
interest  in  the  collection  of  our  aboriginal  remains,  and  it  is 
gratifying  to  learn  that  Bucks  County  is  not  behindhand  in 
this  direction.  Respectfully  yours, 

[Signed]  D.  G.  BRINTON,  M.D. 

From  the  Bucks  County  Intelligencer 
of  Sept.  6,  1884. 


70  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

Letter  from  Mr.  H.  Carvill  Lewis,  Professor  of  Min 
eralogy,  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia. 

PHILADELPHIA,  Feb.  19,  1884. 
CAPT.  J.  S.  BAILEY  : 

Dear  Sir  : — Upon  careful  examination  I  am  convinced  that 
the  mammoth  on  the  Indian  tablet  is  a  forgery,  being  copied 
directly  from  the  drawing  of  a  mammoth  on  a  piece  of  ivory 
found  in  the  cave  of  La  Madeleine,  Perigord,  France.  The 
tablet  is  genuine,  but  the  drawing  upon  it  is  recent. 
Who  do  you  think  perpetrated  this  fraud  ? 

Yours,  very  truly, 
[Signed]  H.  CARVILL  LEWIS. 

Letter  from  Dr.  F.  W.  Putnam,  Curator  of  the  Peabody 
Museum  of  Archaeology,  Cambridge,  Mass. 

CAMBRIDGE,  March  17,  1884. 
DEAR  Mr.  MERCER  : 

In  answer  to  your  request,  I  put  on  paper  a  few  thoughts  in 
relation  to  the  carved  gorget  of  slate  said  to  have  been  found 
in  Bucks  Co.,  Penna.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  I  have  exam 
ined  the  stone  with  great  care  ;  for  if  it  is  a  work  of  prehis 
toric  times  in  America,  it  is  a  specimen  of  very  great  archaeo 
logical  interest.  The  first  impression  I  received  was  that  it 
was  probably  a  fraud.  This  was  of  course  natural,  after  hav 
ing  seen  several  gorgets  with  figures  carved  upon  them  which 
were  unquestionable  frauds.  I  therefore  first  of  all  examined 
the  stone,  and  was  sorry  to  find  that  it  had  been  so  much 
cleaned,  and  rubbed,  and  scrubbed,  and  probably  oiled,  that 
no  evidence  could  be  derived  from  the  character  of  the  lines 
cut  upon  the  surface  of  the  stone,  or  from  the  stone  itself,  bearing 
upon  its  antiquity.  So  far  as  the  testimony  of  the  stone  itself 
is  concerned,  the  lines  may  have  been  cut  within  a  few  weeks 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  Jl 

or  many  years  ago.  Throwing  out  of  consideration  all  the 
facts  you  have  given  me  in  relation  to  the  history  of  the  stone 
as  known  to  you,  I  am  left  with  the  character  of  the  carvings 
alone  upon  which  to  draw  conclusions.  From  a  study  of  these 
I  get  the  following  results  : 

i st.  The  person  who  carved  the  stone  must  have  been 
familiar  with  the  appearance  of  an  elephant  or  mammoth, 
either  from  having  seen  one  or  the  other  in  life  or  represented 
in  pictures.  There  is  too  much  expression  given  to  the  details 
of  outline  of  forehead,  curve  of  back  and  belly,  and  position  of 
the  legs,  representing  the  animal  as  walking,  to  be  the  work  of 
one  who  only  knew  the  animal  from  a  general  description 
handed  down  by  tradition. 

2d.  Most  of  the  other  figures  on  both  sides  of  the  stone  are 
of  a  character  common  to  Indian  picture-writing,  but  there  are 
a  few  which,  like  the  "  mammoth,"  show  an  appreciation  of 
details  or  ideas  unlike  any  I  can  recall  in  Indian  picture- 
writings.  Take,  for  example,  the  fish  on  the  edge  of  the  small 
piece,  and  the  long  eel-like  figure  by  the  side  of  the  bird — 
each  of  these  have  a  few  hair-lines  drawn  from  the  back  as  if 
to  represent  the  rays  of  fins,  in  order  to  impress  the  character 
of  a  fish,  although  the  rays  are  out  of  natural  position.  The 
figure  of  a  man  on  his  back  under  the  foot  of  the  "  mammoth  " 
is  not  drawn  in  the  usual  conventional  manner,  like  the  figure 
of  the  man  with  the  bow. 

3d.  The  idea  of  the  heavens,  conveyed  by  the  figures  of 
stars,  moon,  and  sunv  is  probably  not  an  unusual  way  of  repre 
senting  the  sky  or  the  heavens,  but  the  mass  of  crossed  lines 
near  the  sun,  which  are  supposed  to  represent  lightning,  seems 
to  me  to  be  more  the  conventional  symbol  of  the  white  man 
than  the  Indian. 

Considering  all  these  points  I  draw  these  conclusions  : 

i  st.  The  carvings  were  made  in  ancient  times  by  an  Indian 
of  superior  artistic  skill,  who  had  seen  a  living  mammoth,  and 


72  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

who  wished  to  preserve  some  myth  or  tradition  relating  to  the 
animal,  in  picture-writing  upon  his  gorget  ;  or, 

2d.  The  carvings  were  made  by  an  Indian  in  comparatively 
recent  times,  with  the  same  idea  of  preserving  a  myth  about 
the  "  great  beast,"  and  he  was  aided  in  his  work  by  some 
white  man  ;  or, 

3d.  That  the  carving  is  the  work  of  some  white  man  in  very 
recent  times,  who  may  or  may  not  have  known  of  the  myth 
and  tradition  of  the  Indians  relating  to  the  "  mammoth." 

An  attempt  to  read  the  stone  as  a  pictograph  illustrating  the 
myth  of  the  "  great  beast  "  may  be  going  too  far,  but  if  it  can 
be  shown  to  be  a  piece  of  Indian  work  beyond  reasonable 
doubt,  the  interpretation  of  the  figures  in  that  connection  is 
certainly  legitimate  from  the  remarkable  coincidence  between 
them  and  the  myth. 

I  certainly  hope  you  will  bring  every  possible  evidence  to 
bear  in  your  work,  and  that  by  a  study  of  many  pictographs 
you  will  be  able  to  test  the  doubtful  figures  on  the  stone. 

Yours  very  truly, 
[Signed]  F.  W.  PUTNAM, 

Curator  Peabody  Museum. 

Extracts  from  a  report  of  an  examination  of  the  Lenape 
Stone  by  Dr.  M.  E.  Wadsworth,  of  Cambridge,  Massa 
chusetts.  The  answers  are  Dr.  Wadsworth's. 

Q.  Are  the  carvings  made  by  steel  or  flint  instruments  ? 

A.  The  depth  and  regularity  of  the  carvings  indicate  that 
they  were  made  by  some  dulled  steel  tool  like  an  awl. 

Q.  Are  the  carvings  later  than  the  fracture  of  the  ends  and 
the  middle  ? 

A.  Later — for  the  tool-mark  can  be  seen  at  one  end  strik 
ing  across  the  broken  surface,  and  lines  crossing  the  middle 
fracture  do  not  match  on  both  sides.  On  one  side  they  pass 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  73 

down  on  the  rounded  and  worn  surface  of  the  fracture,  below 
their  position  on  the  other  side.  This  is  seen  in  all  the  marks 
(three  only)  crossing  the  line  of  fracture.  One  other  line  sinks 
down  on  one  side,  and  ends  against  the  fractured  portion 
opposite.  This  appears  to  have  been  made  after  the  fracture 
by  holding  the  pieces  together.  It  is  very  remarkable  that  the 
line  of  fracture  should  cross  the  specimen  at  the  only  place  it 
could  and  intersect  the  minimum  number  of  the  lines  of  carv 
ing.  Even  in  two  of  those  cuts,  the  fracture  breaks  across  the 
point  where  they  cross  one  another.  *  *  * 

[Signed]  M.  E.  WADSWORTH. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
March  17,  1884. 

Extracts  from  a  report  of  an  examination  of  the  Lenape 
Stone  by  Mr.  J.  P.  Iddings,  of  the  U.  S.  Coast  Survey. 
The  answers  are  Mr.  Iddings'. 

Q.  Can  it  be  decided  beyond  reasonable  doubt  whether  the 
carvings  were  made  with  a  steel  or  flint  instrument — is  there  a 
great  probability  either  way  ? 

A.  I  do  not  know. 

Q.  Are  the  carvings  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt  later  than 
the  fracture  in  the  middle — (or  other  fractures)  ? 

A.  They  appear  to  be  later  than  the  middle  fracture  ;  they 
do  not  lie  at  the  same  depth  on  the  edges  of  both  pieces.  The 
small  arrow's  shaft  does  not  appear  to  have  been  a  continuous 
line.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  the  middle  fracture  only 
crosses  three  lines  on  one  side  and  none  on  the  other  side,  and 
that  in  no  other  position  could  one  happen  without  cutting 
half  a  dozen  or  more.  The  carvings  appear  to  have  been 
arranged  with  reference  to  the  break. 

[Signed]  JOSEPH  P.  IDDINGS. 

New  York,  March  24,  1884. 


74  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

Letter  from  Dr.  F.  W.  Putnam  referring  to  the  two 
carved  stones  (figs.  19  and  20)  found  on  the  Hansell  Farm 
in  the  summer  of  1884. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  Oct.  30,  1884. 
DEAR  Mr.  MERCER  : 

I  have  examined  the  two  specimens  you  have  placed  in  my 
hands  from  the  Hansell  Farm,  Bucks  Co.,  Penn.,  and  see  no 
reason  to  doubt  their  authenticity.  The  lines  cut  upon  them 
seem  to  have  been  made  a  long  time  since,  as  exhibited  by  the 
weatherings  within  the  incisions.  One  stone  seems  first  to  have 
been  designed  for  a  perforated  ornament,  but  not  completed, 
and  was  afterwards  used  as  a  rubbing  implement,  as  shown  by 
the  notches  on  the  edge.  The  other  stone  is  of  a  natural  form, 
in  which  two  holes  have  been  drilled,  and  on  one  surface  a 
number  of  waves  and  zigzag  lines  were  cut,  evidently  for  the 
purpose  of  using  the  stone  for  an  ornament. 

Yours  very  truly, 
[Signed]  F.  W.  PUTNAM. 

The  reader  is  referred  to  a  series  of  articles  mentioning 
the  Lenape  Stone  in  the  Bucks  County  Intelligencer  of 
August  9,  23,  and  30,  and  September  20,  1884,  and 
headed,  "  Who  Perpetrated  the  Forgery?  "  also  to  a  per 
sonal  discussion  which  took  place  in  the  columns  of  that 
newspaper  between  the  owner  of  the  Stone  and  Mr.  H.  C. 
Lewis,  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia, 
in  which  arise  various  questions  of  veracity  as  to  the  facts 
of  an  interview  which  had  taken  place  between  them — 
i.  e.,  whether  Mr.  Lewis  had  or  had  not  wished  to  buy  the 
Stone,  and  how  long  he  had  been  allowed  the  loan  of  it ; 
whether  he  had  or  had  not  been  permitted  to  take  photo- 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  75 

graphs ;  and  whether  he  or  Mr.  Paxon  had  scratched  the 
surface  of  the  Stone  "  to  see  its  inside  structure." 

After  a  fair  consideration  of  every  fact  bearing  upon 
the  case,  and  with  ample  knowledge  to  judge  of  the 
particulars  of  this  interview  at  the  time  it  took  place, 
personal  considerations  prevent  the  writer  from  discussing 
the  merits  of  this  controversy,  purely  personal  in  its  nature 
and  irrelevant  to  the  question  before  us. 

EVIDENCE   OF  AN   HONEST  DISCOVERY. 

The  first  evidence  to  be  certain  of  in  a  case  of  this 
kind  is  doubtless  that  deducible  from  the  circumstances 
attending  the  discovery  itself,  and  upon  it,  in  the  present 
instance,  for  the  reason  that  the  Stone  has  been  cleaned, 
and  all  vestiges  of  the  soil  which  originally  clung  to  it 
unfortunately  removed,  we  must  chiefly  depend. 

The  fact  that  several  persons  saw  the  first  fragment 
immediately  after  it  left  Hansell's  hands,  throws  back  the 
period  of  possible  doubt  as  to  its  authenticity  to  the  nine 
years  of  his  ownership,  while  the  remarkable  skill  and 
archaeological  knowledge  necessary  to  forge  such  a  stone 
place  him  as  the  possible  maker  of  the  carvings  above  the 
slightest  suspicion.  The  motive  of  gain  must  be  elimi 
nated  from  the  possibilities  of  the  case,  when  we  consider 
the  trifling  sum  received  by  Hansell  for  the  relics,  and 
the  fact  that  the  small  piece  was  presented  by  him  to  the 
present  owner,  while  the  supposition  that  he  could  have 
been  in  collusion  with  any  person  unknown  for  the  pur- 


76  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

pose  of  a  practical  joke  is  rendered  impossible  by  his 
own  honest  simplicity  and  the  conduct  of  his  family  and 
friends  throughout.  Again,  no  one  clever  enough  to 
have  made  the  relic  could  have  been  a  neighbor  of 
Hansell's  and  remained  unknown  or  unsuspected,  and  it 
is  quite  absurd  to  suppose  that  some  one  from  a  distance, 
having  entrusted  the  fortunes  of  so  elaborate  a  practical 
joke  to  the  fragments  of  this  small  stone,  would  have 
"  planted  "  the  results  of  his  labor  in  Buckingham  Town 
ship,  Bucks  County,  where  the  chances  were  very  strongly 
against  its  being  brought  to  the  notice  of  archaeologists, 
even  if  discovered. 

OBJECTIONS    OF   ARCHAEOLOGISTS. 

From  the  a-postcriori  point  of  view — L  e.,  from  the  char 
acter  and  appearance  of  the  carving,  there  are  objections 
which  have  been  considered  important  to  the  Stone's 
authenticity ;  these  the  writer  has  carefully  noted,  and 
will  allow  them  to  speak  for  themselves. 

First,  in  the  opinion  of  Messrs.  M.  E.  Wadsworth,  of 
Cambridge,  and  Joseph  P.  Iddings,  of  the  United  States 
Coast  Survey,  the  carvings  were  made  after  the  Stone  was 
broken.  The  fact  is  proved,  they  say,  by  the  appearance 
of  certain  lines  crossing  the  fracture,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
lightning  above  the  hole  on  the  right,  which,  when  ex 
posed  to  the  microscope,  seem  as  they  cross  to  descend 
into  it. 

Secondly,  the  fracture,  they  say,  crosses  the  minimum 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  77 

number  of  carvings  as  if  they  had  been  arranged  with 
reference  to  it. 

Thirdly,  the  mammoth  on  the  Stone  resembles  the  La 
Madeleine  carving. 

As  to  the  first  point — the  carving  being  later  than  the 
fracture, — Dr.  F.  W.  Putnam  (of  the  Peabody  Museum, 
Cambridge,  Mass.)  observes,  on  the  other  hand  :  "  It  is 
possible  that  an  Indian  might  have  made  his  carving  on  a 
broken  gorget,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  he  should  have 
discontinued  his  work  if  the  gorget  were  broken  during 
the  carving,  a  likely  thing  to  happen," — nor,  we  may  add, 
need  it  be  difficult  to  suppose  that  the  Indian  would  have 
glued  the  pieces  together  or  cleaned  out  the  grooves 
crossing  the  fracture.  In  such  a  case  the  instrument 
would  naturally  have  broken  somewhat  into  the  fracture 
— "  sinking  down,"  as  Dr.  Wadsworth  says,  "  and  ending 
against  the  fractured  portion  opposite,"  while  the  subse 
quent  weathering  and  brushing  might  account  for  the 
slight  difference  in  level  of  the  lines  on  either  side  of  the 
break.  Again,  supposing  the  mammoth  carving  to  have 
been  made  before  the  fracture,  the  carvings  on  the  reverse 
of  the  Stone,  and  the  apparently  meaningless  scratch 
below  the  perforation,  which,  as  it  were,  skips  the  fracture, 
may  have  been  made  long  after  it.  As  Dr.  Putnam  says : 
"  The  fact  that  a  very  large  number  of  perforated  stones 
are  broken  when  found  is  worthy  of  consideration,  and 
also  that  in  most  cases  the  fracture  is  through  one  of  the 
holes."  As  regards  the  resemblance  of  the  mammoth  on 


78  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

the  Stone  to  the  La  Madeleine  carving,  a  point  which  after 
a  careful  examination  of  all  the  facts  struck  Professor 
Shaler,  of  Harvard,  as  suspicious,  there  is  certainly  in  the 
outline  of  the  tail  and  the  indicisive  drawing  of  the  back 
a  great  similarity  in  the  treatment  of  the  two  figures ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  as  Dr.  Charles  Rau,  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institute,  supposes,  the  resemblance  may 
perhaps  be  ascribed  to  accident,  the  drawing  of  the  head, 
ear,  trunk,  and  hair  being,  as  he  suggests,  totally  dissimilar. 
The  seeming  repetition  of  the  outline  of  the  back  in  the 
two  figures  may  perhaps  be  looked  upon  as  a  suggestion 
of  the  mane-like  ridge  of  hair,  which,  as  seen  in  some 
of  the  reconstructions,  extended  along  the  back  of  the 
animal  from  the  neck  to  the  tail  ;  and  it  may  be  observed 
that  any  two  profile  drawings  of  the  same  animal,  as  real 
istic  as  the  above,  would  naturally  possess  striking  points 
of  resemblance.  Dr.  D.  G.  Brinton,  of  the  Academy  of 
Natural  Sciences,  Philadelphia,  objects,  in  a  letter  above 
quoted  to  the  Bucks  County  Intelligencer,  that  "  no  lines 
indicating  shading  or  rounding  are  found  in  the  aboriginal 
designs  of  pure  native  origin  in  the  Eastern  United 
States,"  that  in  these  designs  grouping  was  unknown,  and 
that  "  any  such  triple  arrangement  as  the  brute,  the  human, 
and  the  divine  groups  standing  in  immediate  relation  to 
each  other  and  forming  parts  of  a  picture,  was  far  above 
aboriginal  aesthetic  conceptions,"  that  "  lightnings  shoot 
ing  from  a  central  point  (as  from  the  hand  of  Jove)  were 
unknown  to  the  art-notions  of  the  red  race,"  and  that 


THE  LENAPE  STONE.  79 

"  the  treatment  of  the  sun  as  a  face  with  rays  shooting 
from  it,  I  also  consider  foreign  to  the  pictography  of  the 
Delaware  Indians ;  nor  have  I  yet  seen  any  specimens 
proved  to  be  of  their  manufacture  that  present  it.  It  is 
found,  indeed,  in  Chippeway  pictography,  but  there  only 
in  late  examples." 

To  this  we  can  only  say  that  nothing  is  more  common 
than  " grouping"  in  the  pictography  of  our  modern 
Western  Indians,  while  the  more  ancient  pictographs  of 
the  pre-Columbian  Indian,  a  study  of  which  wftuld  be 
necessary  in  forming  definite  opinions,  as  to  their  charac 
ter,  have  been  almost  entirely  lost  to  us. 

These  were  probably  very  rarely  carved  upon  stone  or 
made  upon  any  thing  but  the  most  perishable  materials, 
and  few  have  survived  the  bigotry  or  indifference  of  the 
early  settlers  and  explorers.  Their  character  is,  we  think, 
not  fully  represented  by  the  meagre  data  furnished  us 
from  the  allusions  of  the  early  writers,  the  Chippeway 
bark  records,  the  "  wallum  olum,"  or  the  rock  inscriptions 
now  within  the  student's  reach,  and  from  which  we  are  left 
to  draw  our  conclusions  as  to  the  evolution  of  "  group 
ing  "  or  "  shading,"  or  the  ability  of  the  Indian  to  treat 
the  sun,  moon,  and  stars,  or  lightning. 

There  could  have  been  no  great  mental  chasm,  we  think, 
between  the  aesthetic  conceptions  of  the  modern  Sioux 
or  Comanche,  who  pictures  a  buffalo  hunt  on  his  robe, 
and  those  of  his  pre-Columbian  red  brother,  who,  as  Los- 
kiel  says,  painted  his  "  bedeutende  figuren  "  on  the  trees 
of  a  Pennsylvania  forest. 


80  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

Domenich  says,  in  the  "  History  of  North  America,"  p. 
426  :  "  We  have  seen  painted  upon  bark  the  representa 
tion  of  a  Chippeway  emigration,  passing  through  rivers, 
forests,  and  mountains,  on  their  way  from  the  borders  of 
a  lake  to  a  more  civilized  country ;  above  the  river  were 
creeks  and  trees,  symbols  of  forests,  and  tumuli  indicating 
mountains  ;  finally,  on  top  of  the  picture  a  dozen  animals, 
totems  of  the  Chippeway  chiefs,  each  with  a  heart  in  his 
breast." 

The  s*ame  author  says,  again  :  "  One  seldom  sees  a  gar 
ment  on  which  there  is  not  a  drawing  in  black,  yellow, 
red,  white,  or  blue,  representing  guns,  lances,  heads  of 
hair,  arrows,  shields,  the  sun,  moon,  men,  horses,  roads, 
etc.,  and  sometimes  mythological  objects." 

Possessed  as  we  elsewhere  find  of  a  considerable  power 
of  delineation  of  which  our  present  extremely  insufficient 
vestiges  can  give  us  no  adequate  idea,  and  having  already 
conceived  the  idea  of  a  "  brute,  human,  and  divine  group  " 
in  his  numerous  traditions  of  a  great  monster,  the  enemy 
of  man,  destroyed  by  divine  wrath  and  lightnings,  we  can 
by  no  means  think  that  the  ancient  Delaware  would  have 
found  it  more  difficult  than  the  Chippeway  mentioned 
above,  to  express  his  conception  in  a  rude  picture  involv 
ing  such  a  triple  grouping. 

TREATMENT  OF  THE   SUN   IN   INDIAN   PICTOGRAPHY. 

As  to  the  "  treatment  of  the  sun,"  we  find  faces  with 
rays,  or  divergent  curves,  in  Schoolcraft,  vol.  i.,  p.  362, 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  8 1 

figs.  16  and  17,  and  p.  409,  fig.  9  ;  vol.  iii.,  p.  493, — a  circle 
with  rays  in  the  rock  inscription  (Delaware  perhaps)  on 
the  Susquehanna  near  the  Maryland  line,  a  face  without 
rays  in  the  rock  inscription  (also  Delaware,  possibly)  at  Safe 
Harbor  on  the  Susquehanna,  and  a  face  with  rays,  the 
counterpart  of  the  carving  in  question,  on  a  small  broken 
tablet  found  near  Akron,  Ohio,  in  the  collection  of  the 
late  Mr.  Dupont,  of  Philadelphia,  who  had  no  doubt  of 
its  authenticity. 

LIGHTNING  IN   INDIAN   PICTOGRAPHY. 

The  marks  in  the  picture  evidently  representing  forked 
lightning,  and  directed  as  in  the  language  of  the  tradition 
at  the  forehead  of  the  beast,  are  without  parallel  among 
the  Indian  pictographs  within  the  writer's  reach.  The 
symbolic  snake,  or  barbed  zigzag  of  the  Moquis — the 
only  Indian  lightning  that  the  writer  has  been  able  to  find- 
differs  greatly  from  this,  yet  there  seems  no  good  reason 
why  the  Indian  should  not  have  sometimes  represented 
lightning  as  he  saw  it. 

LINES  CUT  BY  STEEL  AND  FLINT  INSTRUMENTS. 
As  to  the  steel-cut  appearance  of  the  lines,  Dr.  Brinton 
says  :  "  The  lines  on  the  Lenape  Stone  are  obviously  cut 
with  a  steel  instrument,  making  clean  incisions,  deepest  in 
the  centre  and  tapering  to  points,  quite  different  from  the 
scratch  of  a  flint  point  "  ;  and  Dr.  M.  E.  Wadsworth  thinks 
that  "the  depth  and  regularity  of  the  carvings  indicate 
that  they  were  made  with  some  dulled  steel  tool  like  an 


82  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

awl."  On  the  other  hand  Mr.  J.  E.  Iddings  does  not 
know  whether  it  is  possible  thus  to  distinguish  the  work 
of  steel  and  flint  instruments,  and  a  series  of  experiments 
with  the  microscope  and  steel  and  flint  points  has  induced 
the  writer  to  believe  that  lines  cut  on  a  similar  stone  by 
"  a  dulled  steel  instrument  "  and  a  flint  arrow-point  can 
not  be  distinguished  after  both  have  been  washed  and 
scrubbed. 

The  appearance  of  such  lines  would  of  course  depend 
much  upon  the  sharpness  of  the  flint  or  steel  point,  the 
kind  of  stone  used,  and  whether  the  lines  were  cut  by  one 
or  by  a  series  of  strokes.  The  single  scratch  of  a  scissors 
point  on  a  shale  tablet  of  similar  hardness  makes  an  inci 
sion  .in  shape  like  the  letter  V  ;  that  of  either  an  awl  or 
flint  arrow-head  one  like  the  letter  U  ;  while  any  line 
made  by  either  instrument  and  consisting  of  a  series  of 
strokes  will  have  its  bottom  furrowed  by  parallel  grooves, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  large  lines  on  the  Lenape  Stone. 

The  fresh  flint-cut  grooves,  however,  when  separately 
examined  with  the  microscope,  exhibit  many  faint 
scratches  running  along  the  furrow,  not  so  conspicuous  in 
the  steel  incisions,  yet  a  few  applications  of  soap,  water, 
and  a  scrubbing-brush  efface  these  scratches  in  both  cases, 
and  render  the  surface  of  the  grooves  indistinguishably 
alike  and  in  appearance  similar  to  the  now  polished  in 
cisions  upon  the  Lenape  Stone.  In  other  respects  the 
scratch  of  the  arrow-head  can  be  made  of  equal  depth, 
clearness,  and  regularity,  the  flint  point,  if  held  carefully, 


THE  LENAPE   STONE. 


not  appearing  to  tear  the  edges  of  the  incision  more  than 
the  awl.  Moreover,  we  can  cause  the  flint-cut  line  to 
"  taper  to  a  point  "  or  not,  as  we  choose. 

NEWLY   DISCOVERED   INDIAN   CARVINGS   FROM   THE 
HANSELL   FARM. 

Strongly  in  support  of  the  authenticity  of  the  Lenape 
Stone  and  its  honest  discovery,  are  the  two  carved  stones, 
figs.  19  and  20,  recently  discovered  on  the  Hansell  Farm, 
while  the  present  pa 
per  was  preparing, 
and  proving  that, 
however  rare  in  other 
localities,  small  stones 
were  not  infrequently 
carved  in  this  neigh 
borhood.  Dr.  Putnam 
"  sees  no  reason  to 
doubt  their  authen 
ticity,"  and  Professor 
Shaler,  of  Harvard  College,  to  whom  the  writer  has  shown 
fig.  19,  says:  "  If,  upon  comparing  the  incised  lines  with 
those  on  the  Lenape  Stone,  it  appears  that  they  have  the 
same  character — i.  c.,  the  same  shape  of  furrow, — then  you 
will  undoubtedly  add  a  good  deal  to  the  weight  of  evi 
dence  in  favor  of  the  antiquity  of  the  other  ornament." 

Considering,  however,  the  variety  of  lines  which  may  be 
cut  with  a  flint  instrument,  we  would  hesitate  to  assign 


FlG.  IQ. — Carved  "  Gorget  "  from  the 
Hansell  Farm. 


84  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

great  importance  to  this  comparison.  An  examination 
with  the  microscope  proves  that  the  lines  on  the  gorget, 
fig.  19,  are  not  so  neatly  and  deeply  cut  as  those  on  the 
Lenape  Stone,  and  that  the  bottoms  of  the  grooves  are 
more  rounded.  While  most  of  the  lines  on  the  banner  stone, 
fig.  20,  "tapering  into  points,"  seem  as  deeply  and  clearly 
cut  as  those  of  the  mammoth  outline,  the  microscope 


FIG.  20. — Carved  Banner  Stone  from  the  Hansell  Farm. 

shows  few,  if  any,  scratches  on  the  surface  of  the  grooves, 
which  bear  all  the  traces  of  long  exposure  to  the  weather. 

OPINION   OF   INDIANS. 

The  writer  has  made  several  efforts  to  obtain  opinions 
upon  the  Lenape  Stone  from  modern  Indians,  particularly 
Delawares,  in  the  West  and  in  Canada.  Mr.  Horatio 
Hale,  of  Toronto,  who  kindly  showed  photographs  of  the 
carvings  to  several  Indians  in  Canada,  among  whom  were 


•sp 

3q}    UI    U9A9    JOU    'EJ9    9JBAYEpQ    }U9pUB   9q}  UI  p9J9; 

U99q  :pX  SB  9ABq  'suuoj-9did  uBipui   jo  uaspoui  }so 
sj9pisuoD  'BiqdppBjiqj  jo  <J9qjBg  -y  -3  uj\[ 
xnoig  aq}  X^DEXS  jo  ssdid  ou  pu^  'sui>[uoS|y 

JO  XuB  UI  'IUE3J  UED 

SB  'jnooo  ;ou  sgop  iiuoj  9qj^  *3uo;g  sq;  jo 
o;  uoipsfqo  jsq;ouB  SB  jo  us^ods 
uj9;s3A\q;nog  ui  ^{jjBnb  snouiBj 
-sdid  paj  jo  3;iuq;B3  jo  apBui  's^uinjBD  xnoig  uj 
3q;  0}  (/)  sanSij  9did  3q;  jo  9DUEjqui9S3J  Suoa^s  ^ 

NVIdNI 

DB;UOD  jo 

XUBLU  Xq  ;so|  U33q  3ABq  XBUI  ODBJ  siq  jo  suopipB. 
jo  ;JB  oiqdBjSopid  B  jo  gSpajAvou^  jsuuoj  siq  JBJ  A\O 
'psSuopq  UBipuj  3q;  qoiqAV  o;  9qu^  aq^  uodn  puada 
qoB9  ui  pjnoAv  suoiuido  9S9q;  jo  anjBA  3q^  'asjnoo 
ou  3AiS  pjnoD  Xaq;  'sajnSij  jnj;qnop  ; 

jo  S>[JBUJ  ; 


P9UJ33UOD   S3qu}  sq;  jo  3UIOS 

B  s^BDipui   'piBS  Xaq;  'Xj|Bjn;BU  p|noA\  ssdi 
q;  jo  apis  9SJ9A9J  9q;  uo  sjoquiXs  9q;  ;noqB 

JO  XqS  9J9AV  'XBOq  B  SUIJB9J  'pUB  *9Jn^B9JD  B  q 

pJB9q  J9A9U  pBq  XgqjL  'iU9q;  p9X9|dj9d  qoiqAV  'q;oi 
9q}  JQJ  ;nq  Di;u9q;nB  ;i  J9pisuoo  o;  p9uipui  U99C 
pynoAV  puB  'diqsuBtLDfJOAY  UBipuj  p9A\oqs  9uo;§  9q: 
;qSnoq;  Xgq;  „  ;Bq;  sXBS  fs3JBA\BpQ  ;u9Si|p;ui  AJ9A 


'3NOJ.S   3dVN37  3HJ. 


86 


THE  LENAPE  STONE. 


On  the  other  hand,  the  profile  of  the  Sioux  form  itself 
could  not  more  closely  correspond  with  the  minute  out 
line,  which  is  too  small,  perhaps,  to  be  taken  very  strictly, 
than  does  the  profile  of  fig.  21 — a  pipe  now  in  the 


FIG.  21. 

Archaeological  Museum,  at  Salem,  Mass.,  and  found  by 

Dr.  Putnam,  in  an  an 
cient  Indian  grave  near 
Beverly,  Mass. 

The  other  pipe  figure 
on  the  stone  might  easi 
ly  have  been  suggested 
by  the  form  from  the 
mounds,  with  a  slightly  curved  base  (fig.  22),  now  in 
the  Peabody  Museum  at  Cambridge,  Mass.,  and  discov 
ered  in  a  mound  in  Ohio. 


FIG.  22. 


INDIAN   PICTURE-WRITING. 


Schoolcraft,  who  has  been  more  explicit  than  other 
writers  respecting  the  picture-writings  of  the  North  Ameri 
can  Indians,  speaks  of  two  distinct  pictographic  systems 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  87 

among  the  Algonkin  tribes,  called  by  them  respectively 
Kckccivin  and  Kekeenowin.  The  first  appeared  to  be  their 
method  of  recording  facts  of  every-day  occurrence,  and 
embraced  the  heraldic  devices  used  upon  the  grave  posts 
— the  communications  written  upon  birch  bark,  and  the 
caution  marks,  itinerary,  hunting,  and  war  records  in 
scribed  upon  the  trunks  of  blazed  trees  by  travelling 
bands,  to  communicate  intelligence  to  their  comrades  in 
the  forest.  These  writings,  the  signs  of  which  were  care 
fully  taught  to  the  young,  like  the  language  of  signs  com 
mon  at  present  to  a  majority  of  the  Western  tribes,  could 
be  understood  by  any  Indian.  Loskiel,  the  Moravian 
missionary,  who  makes  frequent  mention  of  picture 
records,  states  that  "  it  gave  the  Indians  great  pleasure  if 
one  halted  on  coming  to  such  a  tree,  and  listened  to  their 
description  of  the  great  chief  and  his  exploits  thereon  in 
scribed." 

The  Kekeenowin,  on  the  other  hand, — the  pictographic 
system  of  the  prophets,  jugglers,  and  medicine-men, — was 
far  less  generally  understood  by  the  Indians  themselves. 
It  was  the  method  used  in  the  historical  records,  sung  be 
fore  the  tribe  at  religious  feasts  and  dances,  and  was  like 
wise  invariably  employed  in  the  incantations  of  the  priests, 
prophets,  and  medicine-men,  of  which  Schoolcraft  gives 
seven  kinds  relating  to  medicine,  necromancy,  revelry, 
hunting,  prophecy,  war,  and  love. 

The  chief  characteristic  of  the  Kekeenowin  is  the  fact 
that  in  it  each  symbol  recalled  to  the  mind  of  the  reader 


88  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

learned  in  the  art  a  song,  previously  committed  to  mem 
ory  by  him  in  connection  with  the  symbol,  and  the  gen 
eral  idea  of  which  was  more  or  less  arbitrarily  connected 
with  it.  "  The  words  of  the  song,"  says  James,  in  his 
appendix  to  Tanner's  narrative,  "  were  not  variable,  but 
must  be  learned  by  heart,  otherwise  though  from  an  in. 
spection  of  the  figure  the  idea  might  be  comprehended, 
no  one  would  know  what  to  sing."  The  main  object,  how 
ever,  was  the  preservation  of  the  songs,  which  the  priests, 
on  consulting  their  birch-bark  scrolls  or  painted  wooden 
tablets,  were  thus  enabled  to  sing  at  the  great  feasts, 
giving  the  many  verses  in  their  proper  order.  The  con 
nection  between  the  symbol  and  the  idea  expressed  by 
the  song  was  often  beyond  the  power  of  divination  to  the 
uninitiated,  and  the  key  to  these  sacred  incantations,  a 
knowledge  of  the  songs,  once  lost,  could  never  be  re 
covered,  as  it  was  doubtless  far  from  the  intention  of  the 
priests  that  the  uninitiated  Indian  should  divine  their 
mysteries  from  an  inspection  of  the  symbols.  It  was  only 
upon  the  payment  of  many  beaver  skins,  says  Tanner  in 
his  narrative,  that  he  was  permitted  to  learn  the  mystic 
signification  of  the  twenty-seven  symbols  of  the  Chippeway 
song  for  medicine  hunting,  which  it  took  him  more  than  a 
year  to  learn. 

The  historical  records,  however,  were  sometimes,  it 
appears,  written  in  Kekeewin  and  sometimes  in  Kekee- 
nowin  ;  some  were  related  in  songs,  others  were  not. 
Those  inscribed  upon  painted  wooden  tablets,  or  the  bark 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  89 

scrolls,  and  pieces  of  slate  alluded  to  by  George  Copway, 
were  doubtless  generally  sung  at  stated  occasions  before 
the  tribe,  while  the  Muzzinabicks  or  rock-writings  upon 
the  face  of  cliffs  and  boulders,  as  at  "  Bald  Friars  "  and 
"  Miles  Island  "  on  the  Susquehanna  or  West  River,  and 
Bellows  Falls,  Vermont,  at  the  Cunningham  Islands,  Lake 
Erie,  or  upon  the  famous  Dighton  Rock  at  Fall  River, 
Mass.,  although  including  many  of  the  characters  seen  in 
the  song  records  were  probably  not  expressed  in  songs. 

TRADITION  OF  THE  GREAT  BUFFALO. 

Another  version  of  the  big-buffalo  tradition  is  found  in 
Rembrandt  Peale's  pamphlet  on  the  mammoth,  published 
in  Philadelphia  in  1803.  Notwithstanding  the  highly 
colored  style  of  the  translation  the  ideas  expressed  seem 
to  be  those  of  the  Indian.  It  reads  as  follows :  "  Ten  thou 
sand  moons  ago,  when  naught  but  gloomy  forests  covered 
this  land  of  the  sleeping  sun,  and  long  before  the  pale 
men,  with  thunder  and  fire  at  their  command,  rushed  on 
the  wings  of  the  wind  to  ruin  this  garden  of  nature,  when 
naught  but  the  untamed  wanderers  of  the  woods,  and  men 
as  unrestrained  as  they,  were  lords  of  the  soil,  a  race  of 
animals  existed,  huge  as  the  frowning  precipice,  cruel  as 
the  bloody  panther,  swift  as  the  descending  eagle,  and 
terrible  as  the  angel  of  night.  The  pines  crashed  beneath 
their  feet,  and  the  lake  shrunk  when  they  slaked  their  thirst ; 
the  forceful  javelin  in  vain  was  hurled,  and  the  barbed  ar 
row  fell  harmless  by  their  side.  Forests  were  laid  waste 


90  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

at  a  meal,  the  groans  of  expiring  animals  were  everywhere 
heard,  and  whole  villages,  inhabited  by  men,  were  de 
stroyed  in  a  moment.  The  cry  of  universal  distress  ex 
tended  even  to  the  region  of  peace  in  the  west,  and  the 
Good  Spirit  interposed  to  save  the  unhappy.  The  forked 
lightning  gleamed  aloud,  and  loudest  thunder  rocked  the 
globe.  The  bolts  of  heaven  were  hurled  upon  the  cruel 
destroyers  alone,  and  the  mountains  echoed  with  the  bel- 
lowings  of  death.  All  were  killed  except  one  male,  the 
fiercest  of  the  race,  and  him  even  the  artillery  of  the 
skies  assailed  in  vain.  He  ascended  the  bluest  summit 
which  shades  the  source  of  the  Monongahela,  and  roaring, 
aloud,  bid  defiance  to  every  vengeance.  The  red  light 
ning  scorched  the  lofty  firs,  and  rived  the  knotty  oaks, 
but  only  glanced  upon  the  enraged  monster.  At  length, 
maddened  with  fury,  he  leaped  over  the  waves  of  the 
west  at  a  bound,  and  at  this  moment  reigns  the  uncon 
trolled  monarch  of  the  wilderness,  even  in  despite  of  om 
nipotence  itself." 

THE  CHEROKEES  AND   CHOCTAWS  DESCENDANTS   OF  THE 
MOUND-BUILDERS. 

If  the  account  of  Cusic  and  the  Lenape  traditions  con 
cur  in  solving  the  mystery  of  the  mound-builders,  and 
proving  their  identity  with  the  Allegewi  of  the  Lenape 
tradition,  the  evidence  is  strengthened  by  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  language,  which,  as  Mr.  Hale  and  others 
have  shown,  renders  it  probable  that  the  conquered  race, 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  91 

fleeing  down  the  Mississippi,  were  received  and  adopted 
by  the  Choctaws  and  Cherokees,  who  thus  became  in  part 
their  descendants.  Both  the  language  of  the  Cherokees 
lying  to  the  southeast  of  the  mound-builders'  dominions, 
and  who  claim  to  have  built  the  Grave  Creek  mound,  and 
that  of  the  Choctaws  lying  to  the  southwest,  have  in  their 
vocabularies  been  largely  recruited  from  a  similar  foreign 
linguistic  element.  One  remnant  of  the  Allegewi  mingling 
with  their  conquerors,  the  Talamatan  or  Hurons,  became 
in  part  the  ancestors  of  the  Cherokees.  Living  to  the 
southeast  of  the  mound-builders'  dominions,  the  Chero 
kees  had  their  council  lodge  on  the  summit  of  a  vast 
mound,  the  construction  of  which  they  ascribed  to  a 
people  who  had  preceded  them.  In  grammar  their 
language  resembled  the  Huron-Iroquois,  while  in  vocabu 
lary  it  has  been  largely  recruited  from  some  foreign 
source. 

The  other  remnant  of  the  vanquished  Allegewi,  fleeing 
down  the  Mississippi  "to  the  southward,"  would  have 
been  received  and  protected  by  the  warlike  Choctaws, 
themselves  a  mound-building  people  in  comparatively  re 
cent  times,  and  the  peculiar  foreign  element  in  whose 
language,  which  differs  considerably  from  that  of  the 
sister  Creek  and  Chicasaw  nations,  would  thus  be  ex 
plained. 


92  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

CARVED     "  GORGET  "    FOUND     ON    THE     HANSELL    FARM, 
JANUARY   8,    1885. 

While  the  foregoing  pages  were  in  course  of  publica 
tion,  the  carved  "  gorget  "  (fig,  23)  was  found  on  the 
Hansell  farm,  on  Thursday,  January  8,  1885. 

The  circumstances  of  the  discovery  were  as  follows : 
Late  in  the  autumn  of  last  year — 1884 — the  writer  had 
caused  an  excavation  to  be  made  at  a  spot  in  one  of  the 
fields  on  the  Hansell  property,  where  the  carved  stone 
(fig.  19)  had  been  found.  At  this  place  the  soil  of  the 
field,  a  yellowish  clay,  was  very  noticeably  discolored  as  if 
by  the  fires  and  decayed  refuse  of  aboriginal  dwellings  ;  the 
discolored  spot  was  of  a  dark  brown  color,  and  covered  an 
area  of  about  twenty  square  yards. 

The  excavation  measured  about  25  feet  in  length  by 
4^  feet  in  width,  and  about  3  feet  in  depth.  The  dark 
brown  stratum  had  a  depth  of  i^-  to  2  feet,  and  beneath 
it  appeared  the  yellow  clay  of  the  surrounding  field.  The 
place  was  at  a  distance  of  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from 
the  spot  where  the  Lenape  Stone  had  been  found.  In 
digging  the  trench  many  small  stones  were  thrown  up,  but 
no  human  remains  or  implements  were  discovered.  The 
earth  was  not  thrown  through  a  sieve.  As  the  excavation 
was  to  have  been  continued  in  the  spring,  the  trench  and 
pile  of  earth  were  left  undisturbed. 

Bernard  Hansell,  the  discoverer  of  the  Lenape  Stone, 
states  that  he  found  the  carved  gorget  (fig.  23)  in  this 
heap  of  earth  on  Thursday  the  8th  of  last  month  ;  his 


THE  LENAPE   STONE.  93 

brother  had  previously  found  there  several  flint  chips,  and 
Hansell  had  gone  to  the  spot,  on  the  day  in  question,  ex 
pressly  to  look  for  "  Indian  relics." 

The  day  was  warm  and  the  trench  full  of  water.  The 
field  was  very  muddy.  Hansell  found  the  stone,  the 
perforation  in  which  had  attracted  his  attention,  protrud 
ing  a  little  from  the  mud  on  the  outside  of  the  heap,  and 
in  the  yellow  earth  last  thrown  out.  Without  displacing  it, 
he  returned  to  the  house,  and  brought  his  brother,  William 
Hansell,  to  the  spot,  that  the  latter  might  witness  his 
discovery.  Then  removing  the  stone  from  the  mud,  he 
washed  it  in  the  water  of  the  trench,  not  rubbing  it,  but 
holding  it  in  the  water  for  about  five  minutes.  The  mud 
clinging  to  it,  having  melted  and  frozen  several  times 
within  a  few  days,  was  very  soft  and  dissolved  easily.  On 
the  same  day  Hansell  informed  the  writer  of  his  discovery 
in  a  letter. 

The  stone  is  a  soft,  red  shale,  similar  in  appearance  to 
the  Lenape  Stone.  Unlike  the  specimens  (figs.  19  and  20) 
found  on  the  surface  of  the  ground,  its  surface  presents  a 
very  polished  and  rubbed  appearance,  as  if  it  had  been 
subjected  to  long  wear  after  the  carvings  had  been  made. 
The  lines,  the  edges  of  which  are  much  worn  and  rubbed, 
do  not  seem  sharply  and  deeply  cut,  as  those  of  fig.  20 
or  the  Lenape  Stone,  and  the  bottoms  of  the  grooves,  to 
which  the  soil  still  clings,  appear  rounded,  as  if  cut  with  a 
dull  point — as  in  the  case  of  the  shallow  incisions  upon 
fig  19. 


94  THE  LENAPE   STONE. 

• 

The  discovery  of  this  stone  in  the  clayey  soil,  beneath 
the  black  stratum  above  mentioned,  and  where  it  had  lain 
for  an  indefinite  period  beyond  the  reach  of  the  plough 
share,  would  account  for  its  polished  appearance  and  the 
absence  of  weathering  upon  its  surface — the  conditions  of 
its  discovery  generally  corresponding  with  those  in  the 
case  of  highly  polished  implements  found  in  the  mounds. 


Fig.  23. — (Natural  size)  Carved  "  Gorget  "  Found  on  the  Hansell  Farm, 
January  8,  1885. 

The  design  consists  of:  (a)  three  waving  lines  representa 
tive  of  water ;  (b)  three  points  between  the  perforations, 
referring  probably  to  wigwams — possibly  an  allusion  to 
the  triple  clanship  of  the  Lenapes  and  their  settlement  by 
the  Lenapc  whittuck  or  Delaware  River  ;  (c)  a  bow ;  (d)  an 
arrow  ;  and  (e)  a  quiver. 

The  design  on  the  reverse  side,  of  which  we  here  give  a 
rough  outline  (fig  24)  consists  mainly  of  a  series  of  circular 


THE  LENAPE   STONE. 


95 


waving  lines,  representative  probably  of  water  ;  numerical 
dots  and  "  tallies  "  ;  and  three  triangular  outlines,  common 


Fig.  24. — Reverse  of  fig.  23. 

Indian  symbols  for  the  human  figure,  and  again  suggestive 
perhaps  of  the  Wolf,  Turtle,  and  Turkey  brotherhood  of 
the  Lenapes. 


RETURN  CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 

202  Main  Library  642-3403 


LOAN  PERIOD  1 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

LIBRARY  USE 

This  book  is  due  before  closing  time  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

H^^rt&**             * 

Kttu  w 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKELEY 
FORM  NO.  DD6A,  8m,  477  BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


YC  27815 


U~  494" 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRA] 
' 


